Words
by jilyjackson
Summary: A collection of one-shots on the evolution of Percabeth from the very moment they met.
1. Bodyguard

**Disclaimer: Nope. I don't own Percy Jackson, a truly sad fact of life indeed. I don't own the image, either. Hmph. **

**Rating: T**

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Bodyguard

**"This is not vacation."**

I sighed, snapping my laptop shut. My boyfriend stared down at me from the couch, arms crossed and a scowl on his face. "I told you it wasn't going to be," I said, standing up from the couch and stretching my arms. "I'm meeting with a businesswoman who could probably give me a contract. That's the only reason that I'm even _in _Miami. This place is riddled with monsters."

Percy Jackson spluttered. "So I'm… what? Your _bodyguard_?" His expression was incredulous, but I grinned, standing up and planting a kiss on his cheek. Though his features relaxed marginally, he was still very clearly not happy. "I'm nobody's bodyguard," he grumbled, turning his back to me. His shoulder blades stuck out in the back of his t-shirt as he poured a cup of coffee. The hotel room that we were staying in was tiny- as an educated, smart, twenty-year old woman, I was still surprised at the tiny size of it. It was a main room and a tiny, claustrophobic bedroom. Percy had very nearly offered to take the couch for me, but I had declined.

"Calm down," I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Sighing, I sat back down on the couch. "You're not a bodyguard. You have a mind of your own, you know. I'm not keeping you in this tiny hotel room. I just have a few things to take care of before I go meet her tomorrow. I swear, we've got a whole forty-eight hours to ourselves in the dangerous world of Miami."

"Yeah, right. I'm not going to leave you to yourself here. You'll never make it out the front door. I'll come back at ten pm, and you'll still be here, typing away on your little laptop. _Annabeth. _Look up here. See my eyes?" My sight had strayed down to the laptop to where it lay on the coffee table. "_Annabeth. _You could at least pretend that you're paying attention to me."

I looked back up at him and winced. Percy was pissed; I could tell. His arms were crossed in a warrior stance, and his eyes were bright and alert. He needed to get out of the hotel room before he lost it. "You're not my bodyguard, Perce," I said softly. "I promise. I just need to get some work done." I ran a hand through my hair. "I might be a demigod, but mortals use American money, and right now, I'm pretty short on that." I tried for a weak smile, but I only managed a grimace. "This is stressing me out. I _need _this job, and this woman could give it to me. She has connections." My gaze was pleading. "Please."

He stared at me, his expression unreadable, and then plopped down on the couch. Percy wrapped an arm around me, and I leaned back into him, breathing in the scent of cookies and salt water- two things that should have been impossible together, but made a scent uniquely Percy. "You know," he said, his voice soft, "if you were worried about work, you should have just told me, Wise Girl. I could lend you some money, or-"

"That's the thing, though. Percy- it might be tough for you to understand this, but I have to do this myself. I need to be independent, all on my own." I broke from his hug, staring into his eyes. Even nearly five years after we had started dating, the green in his eyes still sent shivers down my back.

"I understand. I know." The words were tentative and soft with their meaning. He grinned lopsidedly. "Though, you know, you're not really all _that _independent." His teeth flashed in the light.

I smacked him on the arm. "Seaweed Brain, this is important to me! Can't you stop with the wisecracks for one minute?" I paused. "Though, really. How am I not independent?" My thoughts wandered, but I couldn't think of one way that I wasn't independent. I had an apartment, though I hardly stayed at it, I paid for my own groceries, clothes, amenities… I was very proud of how strong and independent I was. Percy was treading on thin ice here.

"Well," Percy said, a smirk on his face, "you do have a bodyguard."

I decided to let him take the couch after all.

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**A/N: These one-shots will probably be around this length. I hope that you liked this one. **

**Please review! Let me know what you thought!**


	2. Promise

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. End of story. Except for, you know, not this story. This one is fun to write. **

**Rating: T**

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Promise

**He had been missing four days, thirteen hours, twenty-one minutes, and seven seconds. **

I scribbled in my notepad, random, useless little lead drawings of random shapes. My head nodded forward, but I straightened. My chest tightened as I looked at the bulletin board in front of me. Everyone else in the Athena cabin was already asleep; it was just my light at the desk that was on. There was no way that I was going to be able to sleep, not while he was missing. A photo caught my attention, and carefully, primitively, I untacked it and gazed down at it. It wasn't much, just a photo, a caught still of time, but in that moment, it was enough to put me into pieces.

It was a picture of Percy and me, at the beach. I remembered that day clearly, the sun shining, and I could practically feel the wet sand wedged in-between my toes. The smell of sunscreen seemed pungent, and I closed my eyes, remembering the cloth feeling of the towel underneath me, and feeling his arm around me. Percy had been missing four days, thirteen hours, twenty-three minutes, and two seconds, and there wasn't a moment that I wasn't thinking about him. I cradled the picture to my chest, looking at it through blurry eyes.

Percy had his arm around me, grinning his goofy, lopsided smile that I had first hated but eventually grown to love. The sight of his green eyes still sent shivers down my back, and a tear streaked down my cheek. I was leaning into him, in my bathing suit, rolling my eyes though a grin tugged at my lips. In that moment, I had pretended to be annoyed at him, with his sunscreen war paint that he hadn't bothered to rub into his olive skin, but it was one of the happiest moments of my life. For once, I was allowed to be _carefree. _I felt his arm around my waist, and shudders of anticipation ran up my back at the imagined touch of his hands.

That was right about when I lost it.

I didn't care that it was nearly midnight, that most of my cabin was probably asleep. For four days, twenty-five minutes, and fourteen seconds, I had held in my tears and my fears. In that moment, however, I was past caring. I worried that he wouldn't come back, just as I had worried that I was doomed forever when I held the world on my shoulders, when I kissed him before he blew up Mount St. Helens, and when he kissed me back underwater. I missed him more than anything. I missed hearing him snicker, or yell at the Stoll brothers yet again, or smirk at Clarisse. I would give just about anything to hear his voice at the door of my cabin. I started to sob, horrible, wracking tears. Hugging my arms to my chest, I prayed to all of the gods above that Percy would come back, that he was safe.

Your biggest fear was never quite what you had expected. There were literal fears, and thoughts. My feared thought was that my father would tell me that he didn't love me; that I was a child that he didn't want. My biggest literal fear had been spiders. This was the case for a long, long time, but not anymore. Now, my biggest fear and thought would be to hear that Percy was dead. I would die for him- I had proven that when I took a poison knife for him. Tears spilled down my face, and I blubbered, sounding like a beached whale. He wasn't just my boyfriend; he was my _best friend. _Sobs shook my body.

Surprisingly enough, a warm pair of arms closed around me. "It's okay," a voice said soothingly. With a start, I realized that it was my older half-brother, Malcolm. My sobs thickened and became heavier, and I stayed like that for a long time, leaning on him. I had sworn that I would never depend on anybody, and until four days, twenty-six minutes, and thirty-seven seconds ago, I had thought that I didn't depend on anybody. Now I knew that I depended on Percy. I missed him. He was missing, and I didn't want to accept the fact that he might not come back.

"No, it's not," I whispered.

"It is," Malcolm insisted. "I promise, Annabeth. He'll come back. Percy Jackson might be a lot of things, but the thing that I admire most about him is that he's persistent. He'll find a way, Annabeth. I promise you."

I was tired. I was sore. I missed my boyfriend and best friend more than anything in the world, and I would trade anything to get him back. Apparently, that wasn't enough. The gods and the Fates were cruel. The _Morai _liked to play tricks on the mind, and in that moment, I didn't really appreciate their trick on my broken heart.

All I had was a promise.

In that moment, in that night, surprisingly, a promise was enough.

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**A/N: I'm back! I hope you liked this one-shot. I'm back so soon because these are really easy to write and don't take very long. I'll try to update every day, but I'm not sure how long that's going to last. **

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! **

**Please review again! Let me know what you think about this one! **


	3. Nightmare

**Disclaimer: We've been over this. No, I don't own Percy Jackson, and I never will. **

**Rating: T**

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Nightmare

**I woke up in a cold sweat.**

Night filtered in through the window, bathing the floorboards of my room in a cold light. I panted, clutching my sheets in my hands with white knuckles. Images of the nightmare ran through my mind, tantalizing me cruelly. _Fire. Running. Thirsty. _Gulping, I stood, running a hand through my hair. _Calm down, Annabeth. It was just a dream. Just a dream. _It had become a mantra of sorts, throughout the two days that I had been back from Tartarus and on to the _Argo II_. 'Just a dream'. Of course, it hadn't been just a dream, not then.

My breathing grew slower; more controlled. I listened closely, and I thought that I could almost hear Percy's breathing across the hall. Laying back down in the bed, I clenched my fists, looking up at the ceiling. It had been two days; forty-eight hours. Statistics said that approximately 310,000 people had died in the past hours, and approximately 720,000 people had been born. It was amazing, how so much could happen in the span of two days without you even realizing it. What might be a droll day to you was an incredible day for 1, 030, 000 other people. Yet, as I lay in my bed, it wasn't even close to enough time to forget.

Typically, I was a firm believer in theories that no one person should ever want to forget part of their past, painful or embarrassing as it might be. Regardless if you start a new life- I had no problem with that- there was something in your old memories that led you to start a new life. Your memories made you what you were, and if you took that away from someone, than that person wouldn't really be the same person at all. I had never wished to forget something before that moment, but as I stared at the ceiling, images of the Phlethegon going through me, I wished desperately to forget Tartarus.

My legs swung over the bed. I had made up my mind. It was three o' clock in the morning, I noted, shooting a glance over to my clock. My feet padded quietly on the floorboards, and I creaked open my door, silently cursing the rusty hinges. I needed comfort, and there was only one person that I knew to go to for that. As I crept across the hallway, I heard the muted sounds of a wrestling match and Coach Hedge snoring. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. Just a little while back above the Underworld was comforting.

I opened the door to his bedroom carefully. A small sliver of moonlight peeked through, and I prayed silently that he wouldn't notice or remember any of this in the morning. It would probably be best if he didn't; he would make endless wisecracks for eternity, and I didn't particularly want to hear them. Swallowing a lump in my throat, I stood there, watching Percy Jackson sleep.

Easing the door shut, I walked over to him. He hardly took up any of his bed; his face was smashed up against the wall. I lifted the covers, slowly curling up next to him. There were many things that I had figured out over the years, various conclusions and philosophical insights, but if there was one thing that I truly knew, it was that I didn't want to handle a problem alone. I wanted someone by my side. Percy might've been asleep, but as I snuggled in the bed, turning away from him, breathing in the scent of Percy, I figured that it didn't really matter all that much.

When he turned around, however, and put his arms around me, holding me tight, I didn't particularly mind. He kissed my temple, and, whispering as to not wake the other crewmates, he said, "It'll be okay, Annabeth. We'll get through it."

I had figured out over the years that typically, 'okay' was usually a euphemism for 'you're screwed'. Right then, though, I decided to believe Percy. I was usually an independent person, but I didn't want to go through the aftermath alone. We were in our own internal battle, and, as I laid there with Percy's arm wrapped firmly around me, I welcomed the nightmares. I had my own soldier to get me through.

It would be okay.

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**A/N: Yay! I'm back again, and (surprisingly) keeping my promise of once-per-day updates thus far. *bows* Anyway, thanks to all reviewers who gave me their thoughts last time. Please review this time! I'm also accepting one-shot prompts, so if you have a prompt, don't stay silent! PM me or review and I'll see if I can complete the one-shot (and, don't worry, I'll give you credit.)**

**Please review! Button's right down there. ;)**


	4. Spray Bottle

**Disclaimer: No. Just... no. I don't own Percy Jackson. **

**Rating: T**

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Spray Bottle

**"****This is so confusing," Percy complained.**

The corners of my mouth twitched. "It's not all that hard, really. You just aren't thinking about it right. You're distorting it and making it far more complicated than it has to be." Percy raised an incredulous eyebrow at me. "It is!" I said defensively. _Think, Annabeth. Don't be a shoddy tutor. It would be pathetic if you failed at tutoring Percy. He's your best friend, for gods' sakes. _A lump rose in my throat. Did he really have to wear such a tight shirt?

I massaged my temples. This was a terrible idea, and I had known that from a start. Ever since Silena had nudged me in the side with her elbow, a telltale smile playing at her lips when Percy said that he was having trouble with his summer schoolwork, I had known that this was a really, really bad idea. In fact, right then and there, I had regretted telling Silena about my crush on Percy for the _millionth _time. I was positive that he didn't even like me. We had been friends since we were twelve, sure, but that was only two years ago. Percy had saved me once. Big deal. He had saved Grover, too, and he barely knew him…

This was why I didn't trust myself to think. My mind always tended to get sidetracked when I thought about Percy, which was really very irritating. I needed to _focus, _and attractive best friends wearing too-small green t-shirts that are the exact color of their eyes are _not helping. _At all. In fact, I was almost entirely certain that it was a delay.

Now my mind was rambling again. Zeus Almighty, this boy was going to give me ulcers with the anxiety he was giving me. Percy frowned at me. _No, don't think about his mouth. Bad Annabeth. Think about dead King Henry. Yes. Better. _"Are you okay, Annabeth?" he asked. "You seem kind of… out of it today."

_Oh, nothing, _I wanted to say. _Just the fact that I have a massive crush on you, and that tutoring you was a really, really bad idea, so I'm sorry that you fail world history. _I cleared my throat. "I'm fine," I lied. "Just a… uh… migraine. Yeah. A migraine." I turned my attention back to King Henry the Eighth. "This guy just had a bunch of wives. You need to remember them."

Percy grimaced. "And why exactly do I need to remember a dead guys' wives? What is this going to teach me in the real world? Hmm? Not to have lots of wives?" He was very nearly pouting like a four year-old. I laughed. _No. Bad Annabeth. Don't laugh about jokes that make fun of history. That is sacrilege. _

"Not really anything, I guess," I said, turning my attention away from my warring thoughts. "Anyway, Henry the Eighth had six wives, in this order: Catherine of Aragorn, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves- very, very briefly-, Catherine Howard, and Catherine Parr." Percy looked bewildered. I bit back another laugh.

"Okay, two things. One: did this guy have a Catherine fetish? And two: why the hell did he have six wives? This guy has some _serious _commitment issues." His face was dead serious. A giggle escaped me. I was appalled at myself. Annabeth Chase didn't _giggle._ Laugh, sure. Chuckle, maybe. Snicker, most definitely. I left all the giggling to the Aphrodite girls.

"They're all for different reasons. Henry was a screwed up person. He annulled his marriage with Catherine of Aragorn because she didn't bear him any sons. He executed Anne Boleyn on probably fake grounds to get another heir. Jane Seymour died of an infection from childbirth. Anne Cleves was for political reasons, though neither were happy with the marriage, and annulled it. Catherine Howard was because King Henry loved her, though Howard had an affair with Thomas Culpepper. Finally, Catherine Parr was for political reasons as well. As for Henry having a Catherine fetish- I don't think so, though one can never be entirely certain."

"Wut?" Percy said, furrowing his eyebrows. "Excuse me, but was that _English_?" He groaned, tossing the history book onto the floor. "I give up! White flag! This is what you get for having a teacher date your mom-"He growled, though it was clear that he liked the teacher.

I sighed. "You are truly hopeless, Seaweed Brain," I said, rolling my eyes. I shut the book. "You're going to have to learn this sooner or later, you know. Probably sooner." I gave him a warning look. He tilted his head, studying me. It was after the Battle of the Labyrinth, and it seemed trivial that we were doing anything as normal as reading up on summer studies, but the whole situation didn't seem very normal to me. The way that he looked at me sent shivers of anticipation down my back. _Zeus, _I thought glumly. _I really need a spray bottle, like they use on cats. I'll never become disciplined. _After a minute or two of staring, I gave up. "_What_?" I snapped. "Why are you staring?"

"Did you cut your hair?" he asked abruptly, scooping his books up into his arms. He gazed at me evenly, his green eyes bright. "Well?" he said, gesturing to _go on. _

I touched the ends of my hair self-consciously. "Uh- yeah. We're going home soon, and I asked Silena to trim it. Just a couple of inches. Why?"

"It looks nice," he said simply, stuffing his books in his bag. "You know," he said, "I haven't forgotten about that kiss." My eyes widened. _Oh, shit. No, Percy. No. Kiss is a bad topic for me. I need a spray bottle before I can handle that conversation. _Truth be told, I hadn't forgotten about my moronic move either. It had been stupid for me to kiss him in Mount St. Helens, but, predictably, Percy Jackson had _survived. _And, if my instincts were right, he ended up in Ogygia- with the beautiful Calypso. The whole kiss situation made me want to melt into the floor and die of embarrassment. As if he would ever like _me. _It seemed impossible.

"Well, that's nice," I said, my voice cracking. I cleared it, noticing Percy's raised eyebrow. "Look," I said, grabbing my rucksack with my books in it, "I've got to go. Study up on Henry and his six dead wives for next time, yeah?" I was out the door of the deserted Athena cabin before he could reply, head tucked down. _BAD ANNABETH. YOU ARE A BAD, BAD GIRL, _I thought. _YOU NEED A SPRAY BOTTLE. _

Silena spotted me on my war rampage. She grinned, waving me over. "So how was the study date?" she said, wiggling her eyebrows. "Did things get heated? Was Jerry and his eight wives just _so _romantic?"

Right then, I didn't really care to remind her that it was _Henry _and his _six _wives, and the only things that got heated were my cheeks from embarrassment. I growled at her, because, really, there was only one thing that I had to say to her.

"I need a spray bottle," I told her miserably, stalking off to the woods where I could go bang my head against a tree trunk in peace.

The last thing I saw before walking away was Silena's confused expression, shouting, "What the hell?"

I just shrugged and walked away.

I was an undisciplined cat, after all.

The only way to tame me would be a spray bottle.

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**A/N: Hello, readers! Yes, I'm back. This one isn't my best writing- it was written at about midnight, and published pretty late, but, oh, well. It's a little longer too- oops. I hoped that you enjoyed. Thanks to all of my reviewers. I'm still accepting prompts. Please review!**


	5. Advice?

**Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Percy Jackson, yada yada, embarrassment to my life, etc. I know, I know. **

**Rating: T**

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Advice?

**I took a deep breath. **

The door to the Aphrodite cabin stood in front of me, impossibly intimidating with its pink ruffles and sequins. I swallowed the lump in my throat. As a thirteen year-old girl, I had been through a lot: running away from home at the age of seven, seeing my best friend turned into a pine tree, going on a quest to find a lightning bolt, only to find that my other good friend was the villain, and, finally, most recently, going on a trip in the Sea of Monsters with Percy Jackson. Despite that, nothing had seemed as intimidating as this moment, waiting by a pink, frilly door with a bunch of questions swirling in my mind like a tornado.

I steeled myself. There was no reason that I shouldn't be able to knock. It was just a door, after all, nothing more. Hunching my shoulders in resolve, wondering if I was going to regret this later, I put my knuckles to the door and knocked three times. The sound seemed to echo impossibly loud, and my heart thrummed in my chest. _Buck up, Annabeth, _I thought. _You are a strong, healthy, intelligent, independent thirteen year-old girl. You can handle knocking on the door of the Aphrodite cabin._

The door swung open, admitting the beautiful Silena Beauregard. Her blue eyes blinked at me. "Annabeth," she said, leaning against the doorframe. Though her gaze was questioning- we had never really gotten along in my years at Camp Half-Blood- she didn't look too surprised to see me. Her manicured fingernails drummed against the doorframe of the cabin, and she looked as if she were pondering whether or not to let me in.

"Lena! Are you coming back or not?" a giggly voice called from inside. Silena rolled her eyes, but she didn't tear her gaze off of me. She looked almost as bewildered as to why I was there as I was. It hadn't been my intention, asking Silena, but I had soon determined that it was probably best to just woman up and ask her. Silena gritted her teeth.

"No!" she yelled back, surprising me. "I've got something to take care of! Sorry!" Ignoring the cries of annoyance that came from within, she took a step outwards, slamming the frilly pink door behind her. She crossed her arms, blue eyes hostile. "Annabeth," she repeated, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. "I never thought I'd see the day where you turned up on Aphrodite's doorstep, but here you are." She leaned against the doorframe. "What do you want?"

My lips pinched together. "Can- can we talk somewhere? Preferably a private place?" My gaze was pleading. "Please, Silena. There's something that I really-" my throat closed up. "Really, need to talk you about. If you could give me like ten minutes and just give me some advice, that'd be great. It's all I want, really." I swallowed. "_Please._"

She looked me over incredulously. "Annabeth Chase, coming to me for help?" She looked bewildered until a knowing smile took over her features. "Ah, I see. This is about Jackson, isn't it?" Silena giggled churlishly. My heart did a little tap-beat skip at his name. _Percy. Ah, dammit, Annabeth! This is why you came to Silena for help! You need to ask her what to do! This is a necessary endeavor!_

"Uh- yeah," I said, my cheeks reddening. "Look, really. Isn't there somewhere private that we can talk?" _Where there may or may not be certain sons of the sea god lurking around with childish senses of humor that make you laugh when you really shouldn't be laughing! Oh, shit. Now you're thinking in run-on sentences, Annabeth. That's just great. _My eyes pleaded with Silena. I desperately needed to have some quality advice, and this just wasn't helping. At all.

"I can't help you, Annabeth," Silena said apologetically. For once, Silena's 'sorry' was actually sincere. "You and Percy… that's something you need to figure out on your own. Percy's a good guy, Annabeth. The only advice I can really give you is this: open up your heart to him. He might just surprise you." With a wink, she made to go back to the door. My jaw dropped.

"Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me," I spluttered. "There's no way in hell that's all you're giving me! Aren't you supposed to be the daughter of the goddess of love? Help me figure this thing out!" I didn't _want _to give Percy a chance. He and I were strictly friends-only. So what if he had been very impressive on a boat? I was sure that loads of other guys could do that too. _Go away, thoughts, _I growled in my mind. I was going insane with worry, and Silena was _winking. _The mere thought made me want to punch her in her beautiful face.

Silena just grinned. "You're a smart girl, Annabeth. Aren't you supposed to be the daughter of the goddess of wisdom? You can figure it out!" She smirked at my stunned face, slamming the door.

I snorted.

Some advice.

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**A/N: Thus ends this chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it. **

**I didn't get any reviews for the last chapter... but maybe for this one? ;) I know, I know. Desperate, yada yada, embarrassment to life, etc. **

**Please review! Let me know what you think! I am ACCEPTING PROMPTS!**


	6. Popcorn and Sugar

**Disclaimer: Nope. Don't own Percy Jackson. *hangs head***

**Rating: T**

**This prompt comes from an idea by adebisi980! Thank you, adebisi980!**

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Popcorn and Sugar

**"****Absolutely not."**

I looked at my boyfriend in dismay. "Percy, you can't be serious. It's not that scary," I said incredulously. "You cannot _seriously _say no to this! What did you think was going to happen when we went here? We were going to sit around, eat nasty food, and spend six hundred dollars on games?"

Percy Jackson crossed his arms. "Yes, actually. That is _exactly _what I thought. Now you've gone and ruined the day for me. Ruined! And I thought I was going to have such a good time, too!" He huffed, walking away from me, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Sighing, I barely resisted the urge to slam my head into a brick wall. We were at an amusement park, and, up until a few moments ago, I was having a ton of fun. The taste of sugary cotton candy was still on my tongue, the sun was shining in the sky, the shouts of happy children filled the air, the smell of popcorn was wafting towards my nose, vendors were shouting about their stupid amusement park games- it was all that a sixteen year-old girl could want on a summer date with her boyfriend. Well, almost. The fact that I had been here _four hours _with Percy and not gone on _one single rollercoaster _was a depressing notion. I looked longingly up at the peaking red and yellow roller coaster in the sky and sighed wistfully. If only, if only. The mere moment that I even mentioned the possibility of going on a rollercoaster, Percy had shut me down. I had never seen my boyfriend so obstinate in his life.

"_Please,_" I begged. "It is not that scary! What do you expect to happen, hmm? Hundreds of people go on these rides per day! Who says that you're going to die? Hmm? Hmm? Can you please answer that for me, Seaweed Brain?" My jaw set, and I tapped my foot on the warm black asphalt. "I'm _waiting, _Perseus Jackson."

"Okay," Percy said. "Look. A, it _is _that scary, Annabeth. B, I'm pretty much expected a very sadistic Zeus to zap me out of the sky while rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. C, somebody dies every day! I'd rather it not be me! D, common sense says that I'm going to die. I just did answer that for you, you big stickler! You don't have to worry about that stuff! Your grandfather is Zeus. My grandfather is- er- I don't know, actually. But my point still stands!"

I stared at him. "Percy, I hate to break this to you, but Zeus is not going to zap you out of the sky. It's a _ninety second rollercoaster ride. _Why is this such a big deal? I've been on these rollercoasters-"

"Death traps!" Percy interrupted.

My nostrils flared. "I've been on these _death traps, _then, since I was seven years old. Percy, you have single handedly killed the Minotaur. You have gone to the Underworld and back just to find a lightning bolt. You have gone to the Sea of Monsters just to rescue your best friend, who was pretending that he was a Cyclops bride. You have rescued me in San Francisco, and held up the world on your shoulders. You have battled Kronos in hand-to-hand combat. And _won. _That's only half of the things you've done, and now you're effing telling me that you won't even-"

Quick as a flash of lightning, Percy pulled me in close, stopping my rant, and kissed me. I froze under his lips, and, albeit reluctantly, responded back. He tasted of amusement park popcorn and sugar. When he pulled back, a smug grin was on his face. "Well? Do you still want me to ride a roller coaster?"

I smacked him across the face lightly. Percy looked wounded, touching his cheek. "_Yes, _you dirty, little, conniving boy!" I crossed my arms. "The kiss was nice, though," I added begrudgingly. Setting my jaw, I looked to the skyline. A dozen rollercoasters were waiting for us.

Smiling, I took his wrist in my hand. Percy got a terrified look on his face. "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! I am _not _getting on a ride with you, Annabeth Chase! Not in a million effing years! You understand me? That is not happening. Oh, shit!" he said, looking up at the roller coaster. "Oh, holy effing piece of mo-"

"Watch your mouth, Percy Jackson. It's conniving and dirty enough." I glared at him, pulling him along as he dug the heels of his shoes into the ground, looking as if he were about to pee his pants, terror wider in his eyes than I had ever seen it in my life before. I grinned wickedly.

That would teach the boy to use dirty tactics on me. Hmph.

It never once crossed my mind that I had once done something very similar to him, and it had ended in a bubble in the bottom of a lake. At the time, he had tasted of salt.

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**A/N: Hello! I am back! *bows* I can't believe I've actually managed to keep my updates daily (though one was at twelve am, but whatever :/)! Thanks SO MUCH for all the reviews! Thanks for the prompts, too! **

**To Athenachild101: Yeah, I took some liberties with that one. As far as Silena and Annabeth being friends, I always kind of imagined them becoming friends after Annabeth matured into, per say, a 'girl'. In the first couple of books, she was really kind of a tomboy, but from ****_Titan's Curse _****and on, she became more of a girl. Percy kind of goes 'woah' when he sees Annabeth for the first time in ****_Titan's Curse. _****I'll also be writing your prompt for tomorrow's chapter. Thanks so much!**

**Please review! I am still accepting prompts!**


	7. Easy Road

**Disclaimer: I am a middle school fangirl, not Rick Riordan. Dang you, universe! *shakes fist at sky***

**Rating: T**

**This prompt came from Athenachild101! Thank you, Athenachild101!**

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Easy Road

**My foot tapped impatiently on the ground.**

"_Explanations,_" I said, glaring at the three boys coated in whipped cream in front of me. "_Now._" They all looked sheepishly at their feet. Under different circumstances, it might've even been funny, but I was just pissed off right now. "I'm waiting," I sang, looking up at the sky. "If you all want to live to see tomorrow, I suggest that you start talking. Very, very soon." My arms were crossed over my stomach. It was twelve o' clock at Camp Half-Blood. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and, if this wasn't targeted at me, it might've been funny. The problem was, it was just irritating, which left _me _irritated, which, as most of camp _should _know by now, was a very, very bad idea. On the whole, it was most definitely not a good day.

Three boys stood in front of me, right by the door to the Athena cabin. Moments before, I had opened up the door to find three boys soaked in something that was either whipped cream or shaving cream. As far as I could tell, the three boys were Travis and Connor Stoll- and, of course, Percy. I glared at my friend. Though I didn't expect much from Travis and Connor- nobody did, as long as they were sane- I had expected better from Percy. Though, of course, according to Silena, that was normal of a girl who had a crush on a boy. You started seeing the best in the boy. Percy was, however, _severely _trying my patience.

Travis cleared his throat sheepishly. "Well, it's April first."

I stared at him. "Oh, you have _got _to be kidding me. That is the explanation I get? 'It's April first'? Was I born yesterday? I know the date, you obstinate imbecile! I'm going to need a bit more than the _sodding date _if you want to leave this porch alive!" Behind me, I knew that Athena campers were watching and snickering at the spectacle. The amusement had not yet spread to me, however.

"What does imbecile mean?" Connor whispered to Travis, who just shrugged. I threw up my hands, barely resisting the impulse to bang my head against the wooden planks. This was frustrating. It was before nine o' clock in the morning, which meant that I was a very, very cranky person. The term 'morning person' meant nothing to me. At this time of day, I was more likely to say, 'I hate morning people. And mornings, and people.'

"Never mind that!" I said, gritting my teeth together. "Just tell me what the hell you're all doing on my porch at eight forty-five am, coated in whipped cream. On April first," I added, at Travis's raised finger. He sheepishly lowered it back down. I jutted out my jaw. "Well? I'm waiting, for about the _billionth _time!"

"Somebody likes their hyperboles," my brother Malcolm said behind me, sniggering. The Athena cabin joined in on the joke, and though I was loathe to do so, I whirled on them, clenching my fists at my sides.

"_Shut it, _Malcolm, before I shove it, 'kay?" I growled. The tall, glasses-clad, sandy-haired boy nodded frantically, backing off. My other siblings guffawed at him. "You too!" I said. I turned to face the boys. "Now, for the last time, I'm going to ask what happened. If you don't answer me, there will be extraordinarily bad consequences. Are we clear?"

Connor shuffled, and Percy remained conspicuously silent. I kept my eyes carefully trained on Connor. I had gotten lots of practice over the two years that I had developed my enormous crush on Percy. All it took was determination and sheer willpower. I didn't look him in the eyes whenever I could. He was falling for Miss I'm-So-Rich-And-Beautiful Rachel Elizabeth Dare, not me. I focused my attention back on Conner. _Keep your thoughts focused, Annabeth. There you go. That's it. _

"Well," Connor said quietly, "April Fool's day is April first." He chewed his lower lip, scuffing his shoe against the beaten-down wood of the Athena cabin. I stared at him, my mouth slowly dropping.

"You were all trying… to… _prank _me?!" I shouted. A few campers looked over. A growl erupted from my throat. "And what? You screwed up so badly that you ended up covered in shaving cream? You _insolent, insufferable little bitches!_"

"We're female dogs?" Percy said, scratching the back of his neck. "I thought we were just giant marshmallows. Or the dough boy from _Ghostbusters. _Either one works." At my livid look, he just shrugged and grinned, undaunted. "I mean, c'mon, Wise Girl. We're three boys in whipped cream. Who you gonna call?"

Nearly everybody who had seen the movie around me snickered. I shot him a livid glance. "I'll deal with you later, Perseus Jackson," I told him, maiming a slitted throat. He just smirked back at me. The arrogant twit. I stalked forward, grabbing the Stoll brothers by the scruffs of their neck, dragging them off. A crowd of spectators had gathered to watch, and I dragged the brothers over by the fire pit. They looked frightened out of their minds.

"Now, listen here," I said, but as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the Stoll brothers turned and sprinted for the woods, a look of pure terror on their faces. Their pallor was sheet white. I stared at them, gaping. They… they had just… run away. "They _ran away,_" I said, aghast. "The bastards ran away from me!"

"Who knew you had such a mouth, Wise Girl?" Percy Jackson said, still spitting bits of whipped cream out of his mouth. I whirled on him, a jaw muscle twitching in my mouth. My gaze was positively livid as I contemplated what to do to him. I could dangle him upside down from a tree- well, maybe I could've a couple of years ago, when he was still scrawny, but the boy certainly wasn't shrimpy anymore, I thought with a hard swallow.

My father used to tell me that 'simple was sometimes the best'. Though I didn't have any godly powers, I was very smart. There were moments, however, when I was a little too smart. I complicated things too far, and that left other people- and, on the rare occasion, me- confused. There were times that I made things a lot harder than it had to be.

For once, I decided to take the easy road.

I walked right up to Percy Jackson and promptly slapped him across the face. I paid no attention to the tingles that jarred my hand, or the way that my hand trembled ever so slightly. For once, I paid attention to the easy path. He made a sound like a strangled cat, and I flipped my hair, feeling for all the world like a confident, independent girl. People were bent over laughing, pointing to Percy Jackson's red face.

Yes, the easy road was definitely best.

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**A/N: Yep, that was this chapter! Still daily (WHO HOO!)!**

**I think I'm going to go take a nap now. I got about 3 hours of sleep because this huge 'killer' moth came into my room. It was literally the size of my pianist hand. Yeah. It was like midnight, too, so I was trying not to wake my family. First, I tried to throw a shoe at it, which failed, seeing as how I have incredibly shoddy aim. It was in my room, and I was like cursing profanities under my breath because all I wanted to do was go to sleep, and there was a giant moth on my ceiling. Then I tried to sic my cat on it, but my cat apparently sucks at eating moths, and I really didn't want to touch the moth (I am terrified of moths) and so I just sprayed it with the only cleaner available to me: toilet cleaner. It was... it was not good. At all. Now, I am very loopy (as I am whenever I get tired) and hating moths, so I'm going to go take a nap.**

**ZZZZZZZ**

**Thanks for the previous review for this chapter! Please review again!**


	8. Eyes

**Disclaimer: As the guest reviewer "China Girl" so cavalierly pointed out with her review, 'Do you Owen Percy Jackson', no, I don't own Percy Jackson. *sighs* Gosh darn it...**

**Rating: T**

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Eyes

**Babies had blue eyes. **

This was an expected phenomenon. It was one of the unsaid rules of nature. When babies were born, they had blue eyes, like cornflower, a little colorless. Babies were docile creatures, indistinguishable. Their blue eyes only added to the notion that they couldn't be told apart. They looked identical, like clones. When I was pregnant, I had worried that I would lose my baby to the crowds of look-alikes that awaited.

When I was expecting, I hadn't paid much thought to the color of my child's eyes. After about a week into the pregnancy, I had just wanted the child _out _of me, so that I could go on fighting next to Percy, who had stubbornly insisted that I wasn't fighting any monsters while I was expecting a baby (boneheaded Kelp Head). I had sometimes waited for him to come back from a fight, sitting on the couch and biting my fingernails. It nearly killed me, and I had been frustrated at the baby for making my handicap. When he had returned home or to the cabin, however, he would just collapse on the couch, all sweaty, and sometimes bleeding, and tell me not to worry. I nearly smacked him the first time he told me that I couldn't fight. Since when was he allowed to tell me what to do? Unfortunately, when I found out that I couldn't throw a dagger when the bump in my belly got too big, I had to admit that fighting probably wasn't the best idea.

So when my baby was born- the experience of which was extraordinarily _painful_- I didn't really know what I was expecting. When Percy had gripped my hand, looking pale from what he had just seen (Though gods know the bastard had to suffer it with me. I wasn't going to undergo that torture alone. It took two people, after all. He was going to pay the price in the aftermath.) I didn't know what my brain was going to see when my child blinked up at me. I had just felt a warm bundle in my hands, and I had looked down, parting the folds of the blanket to look at my baby's face.

It was a girl. Her cheeks were chubby, and her eyes were squinted shut. She probably looked like every other newborn baby in the hospital, but I didn't care. In that moment, I knew that I wasn't ever going to mix her up with any other baby. She blinked open her eyes, grabbing my finger with her tiny little fist, yawning wide. I nearly did a double take at the color of her eyes.

They were green, and not just any green, either. They were a green that I had known for the better part of my life. They weren't the color of the bright green clovers that grew in spring, reminding me of the festive celebration of St. Patrick's Day, or the green of Luna Moth, or the sage green of pungent herbs. No; they were the green of the sea, the same green that I had seen all of my life on the person I loved. I had looked over at Percy, my eyes brimming with tears of joy.

"Oh, Percy," I said, a smile spreading across my face as I looked into his own green eyes. He had put an arm around me, an identical expression on his face as he looked down at our daughter. Just the words 'our daughter' had made me giddy at the time.

"Yeah, Annabeth?" My name felt _so good _coming from his mouth. He called me 'Wise Girl', 'smartass', or other names all the time with that troublemaker smirk of his that I had fallen so deeply in love with. It was nice to hear my name come from his mouth.

I leaned towards him so that he could see the color of his daughter's eyes. They weren't cornflower blue, or cerulean, or iris blue. They were the color of the green sea. "She has your eyes," I whispered. A tear slipped down my eye. It wasn't often that I cried, but when I did, it was for good reason. A laugh left my throat. "My little Marilyn," I had said, looking at her. "Marilyn Elise Jackson."

Percy had grinned. "That's a good name," he said. And then, for no reason at all, we had burst out into laughter. He had kissed me, and in that moment, I didn't think I had ever been happier in my entire life. I had the two people that I loved most in the world: my Percy, and my little Marilyn.

My Marilyn's eyes were green, like the sea.

Like my Percy.

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**Disclaimer: Keeping my promise! Yes! Daily review (pretty late, but whatever. Details, details). I'm not really sure if I like this one, but oh well. Marilyn Elise Jackson is actually the character from my other FanFictions, ****_Unexpected Relations _****and ****_Immerse. _****If you guys are interested, check it out! (I know, I know. Prodding and pushing. *sighs*)**

**Thanks for the reviews (and, China Girl, you crack me up ;))! Please review for this one- let me know what you think!**


	9. A Tenuous Deal

**Disclaimer: Nope. **

**Rating: T**

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A Tenuous Deal

**I took a deep breath.**

My boyfriend looked out over the horizon, watching the silvery moon dance on the waters of the ocean. The view really was beautiful, and though it was late, the sand dank and damp, I saw no reason to get up from our picnic beach date. It had been the perfect day- sunny skies, a few puffy white clouds in the sky- but right now, staring at Percy's face, it had just become the perfect date. I leaned on his shoulder, sitting on the wet towel.

Percy put an arm around me absentmindedly. He laid back down on the towel, hugging me close to him. My eyes were beginning to flutter shut, but I kept them open. I didn't want to miss a single second of this date. "Mm," he said softly. Then he started laughing. I gave him a sideways quizzical glance, and he rushed to explain. "If I had met earlier me four years ago, I'm pretty sure that I would have had a heart attack to see myself on a date with you, having the time of my life."

Despite myself, a sideways smile crept onto my face. "You really hated me that much?" I said, laughing. To be completely honest, I had disliked him a lot for a while, too. Of course, with me, there wasn't any medium. I either hated or loved a person. And, predictably, my unsuspecting thirteen year-old self had fallen prey to just that: love. It wasn't nice, and it certainly wasn't expected. A short burst of laughter erupted from me.

"Me hate you?" Percy said indignantly, sitting up straight with a mocking expression on his face. "You _despised _me. For, like- uh, well, actually, I'm not sure when you stopped. You always kind of seemed to have it out for me." He grinned, his white teeth flashing in the light. I sat up too, crossing my legs.

"I didn't hate you for as long as you might think," I said quietly. "I stopped hating you- well, somewhere around when I got you from Meriwether and you started taking in Tyson. I just didn't really know it at the time. There was more focus on Tyson. I started seeing you as a friend right about then." My cheeks pinked.

Percy seemed to enjoy this, though he had a bit of a shocked expression. "_Meriwether_? Holy Hera, I thought… I thought you hated me long after that. Right about Goode High, actually." He got a smirk on his face. _Oh, no. _"Wait- if you _liked _me since Meriwether, then when did you start _like liking _me?"

"'Like liking'?" I snorted. "That's the best phrase you could come up with?" Despite my cavalier attitude, something squirmed in my stomach. I had a feeling that if I told Percy when my crush on him started, he would never let it go. Ever.

"Somebody's avoiding the question," Percy sang. After four years of knowing the boy, he hadn't matured a bit. I scowled at him, picking up pieces of grass with my fingers. I could lie, of course, but Percy would see right through me. Swallowing, I looked up.

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair. "Alright. I- I started liking you- well, shortly after I started to just like you as a friend and not someone who irritated the crap out of me." I averted my eyes from Percy. "I guess I probably started liking you in the Sea of Monsters. You- you kind of saved me from the Sirens. You were becoming one of my best friends, and then you just went and _complicated things. _Percy, you brought me down in that bubble and hugged me, and it- felt… good. Like, really good. Then I sort of started like liking you. It made me pretty damn miserable. I didn't know what to do with you. Or the feelings I had for you." I blinked up at him. "Sorry."

Looking at him for the first time since my admittance, I was stunned to see the expression on his face. His jaw had dropped, and though it might have just been the moonlight, he looked unnaturally pale. "You… since… Sea… Monsters…" he made no coherent sounds, just a strangling noise. "_Gods, _Annabeth. Why the _hell didn't you tell me_?" He looked like he had just swallowed some unknown piece of matter.

I sighed, looking out on the horizon. "A lot of reasons, I guess. I don't know. You tend to sneak up on a girl. For one, you went from a scrawny boy to- well, you," I said, gesturing to his tall, athletic form. It was a true example of how shocked he was that he didn't even smile smugly. "It was really unnerving when, all of a sudden, you came to camp and I wasn't taller than you anymore. Or stronger. Actually, no, I take that back. It was downright _irritating. _Then, all of a sudden, you started becoming attractive, and sort of, well- out of my league, per say. At least, that's how it seemed to a thirteen year-old girl when she developed feelings for one of her best friends. I kind of got all dolled up when I saw you before I got kidnapped, hoping you'd notice me, but then I got captured and all that. You rescued me, which pretty much just intensified the feelings. Then, I was starting to think I might tell you when Rachel showed up. From what I could tell, you guys both liked each other. So I kept my feelings to myself."

Percy stared at me. Then, in one, quick movement, he pulled me close and kissed me. When he pulled back, it was my turn to be stunned, and a little breathless. "Next time," he said quietly, "you tell me, alright? No more kisses in volcanoes that leave you wondering what the _hell _just happened when your beautiful friend just kissed you because she thought you were about to die. Deal?"

I let out a choked laugh. "Deal. Though I'm not making any promises."

Percy scowled at me.

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**A/N: I'm back! And guess what, pumpkins (dunno why I called you all pumpkins. I'm just weird like that.)? TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY PARTY! I know, you guys are all like cheering for me (jk ;p). My real birthday's not 'till Sunday, though, but OH WELL! You only turn thirteen once, after all!**

**I'm still accepting prompts! Really! My imagination will not last forever! Please review!**


	10. Once Upon A Dream

**Disclaimer: I'm getting tired of putting these. Hi. I'm not Rick Riordan. **

**Rating: T**

**This prompt came from an idea by Athenachild101! Thanks, Athenachild101! I'm going to give you a brief synopsis: Annabeth has dreams about _The Last Olympian _when she's seven years old. The dreams are sent by a certain somebody...**

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Once Upon A Dream

**_My side was on fire._**

_It was as if I couldn't breathe. I was suffocating, slowly drowning into a mist of poison. My vision blurred before me, shapes meshing into unknown blobs. A voice was calling out to me, though I couldn't hear it. All I knew was that my side was on fire, and, somehow, I just knew that I was dying. I didn't know that I could die in a dream- that was odd. From what I had learned thus far, dreams were harmless. They weren't how you were going to die. _

_ I blinked, trying to clear the film from my vision. A boy swam into focus, and I nearly did a double-take. He was crouching by my side- I realized that I was on a couch- and kneeling by me, his eyes full of worry. No, actually, he looked downright terrifying. I wondered why he was so terrified, when my hands went to my stomach. I found the edges of a gauze strip. _Ah, _I thought. _Is… is he worried for me? _The thought seemed impossible. After all, I was just a seven year-old girl, a daughter of Athena. I fought well enough, thought well enough, and did well enough in life, but I had never even seen this boy before. He was muttering wildly to himself, his eyes darting frantically. I could hardly understand a word that he was saying._

_ The boy looked to be fifteen or sixteen. He had windblown, tanned olive skin, dark, messy, jet-black hair, and startlingly green eyes. His mouth was twisted into a grimace of worry as his hand gripped mine. All in all, he was attractive, I had to admit, but I was a little confused as to why a boy I had never met in my life was holding my hand. He whispered my name. _Annabeth. _It seemed to penetrate the dim fold of consciousness. I groaned. Just that effort took a lot. I didn't want to die in a dream- I was seven years old. There was still a lot more that I wanted to do._

_ The dream shifted._

* * *

**_I was in the midst of a battle._**

_People screamed and shouted all around me. I saw the boy from earlier as a hurricane- literally. Water swirled around him in a tornado, and he fought well, I had to admit. His sword was like a blur in the air. I wondered who this boy was. If he had control over water like that, I would have to guess he was a son of Poseidon, but that should have been impossible. From what Chiron had said, children of the Big Three were prohibited. _

It wasn't impossible for Thalia to exist, _my brain sang. I decided to ignore it. Technicalities weren't helping in the battle. Monsters swarmed everywhere, but I had stood stock still, watching the boy fight. Screams, however, diverted my attention from Percy, and I looked to see quite possibly the scariest monster in history approaching._

_ It slithered on a building, its tail whipping. Though I had never actually seen one in real life before, I knew exactly what it was: a drakon. They were the myth that dragons came from, and quite possibly the most fearsome monster in history. My mind was whirling. Of all my dreams, this was the worst that I had ever had. A boy next to me fell to the ground screaming as he was injured, or maybe even killed. I wanted this dream to be over._

_ A lithe warrior in armor led a group of warriors. From their brash actions, I would have to assume the Ares descendants, though I couldn't be certain. Tears spurted at my eyes. I was only seven. I wanted out, out, _out _of this horrible dream. It was unnerving._

_The dream shifted._

* * *

**_I was in a throne room._**

_It was the most beautiful room that I had ever been in, but it was in ruins. Somehow, I knew exactly where I was. Olympus. The mountain and home of the gods. Golden bricks and silver linings were all around me, but a few were smoking. They were crumbled, the rubble spread all over the ground. It seemed to be shimmering into sandstone. _

_ At this point in my disturbing, unreal dream, I was just about to throw in the towel. Of course, I wasn't really surprised when I saw who was standing in front of twelve imposing beings that I somehow knew were the gods. My eyes scanned, and I saw my mother, beautiful, with pinched lips looking down at the boy. My heart thrummed in my throat, but I put my attention back on him. He seemed to be the hero of this battle, and this seemed to be a tribute to honoring him. _

_ "Perseus Jackson." Somehow, the phrase reached me. I wasn't sure if it was from the trimmed, gray-marble bearded man who I somehow, instinctively knew to be Zeus- my grandfather, if I really wanted to strain my head- or from my mind. Regardless, I now knew who the handsome boy was standing in front. He looked tired. _

_ "Immortality." It seemed to be the other word penetrating my barrier of blurry consciousness. Somehow, sirens went off in my mind. They started wailing, and I didn't know why- what did I care if this boy became a god?- but apparently the dream me cared. Very much so. I was almost entirely certain that an expression of pure terror was on my face._

_The dream shifted._

* * *

**_I was underwater._**

_Instantly, I started panicking. Underwater wasn't good for me. My grandfather was Zeus, and my mother was Athena. Underwater typically wasn't where I felt comfortable. My lungs were retracting, and I felt compressed. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't breathe._

_ Then I took in a breath._

_ Apparently, I _could _breathe._

_ I was in a bubble. Around me, Nereids were tittering and pointing at me. I couldn't say that I blamed them, really. There was an underwater bubble at the bottom of some lake, ocean, river; whatever, and I was there. I couldn't say that I was altogether pleased about it, either. It was quite disturbing. I wanted nothing more than to throw in the towel and scream _OUT_! Then, the oddest thing happened. I felt a sort of- attraction. It was difficult to explain._

_ I looked across, and the boy- Perseus Jackson- was sitting across from me, his eyes wide. They really were exquisite, his eyes, like the ocean. They seemed to flicker, though they were mostly a deep, emerald green. Then, quick as a flash of lightning, he pulled me in. My brain started going into overdrive. _WHAT?! I'M ONLY SEVEN, FOR GODS' SAKES, BOY!

_Just as his lips were about to press against mine, the dream shifted._

* * *

**_I was in a room._**

_Room, exactly, might not have been the best word for it. 'Room' was more like a loose turn. It seemed to be made entirely out of earth, like the huts described in Laura Ingalls Wilders' _Little House on the Prairie. _It was cozy, but the whole 'cozy' factor was somewhat put off by a shifting face of dirt in the ground._

_ Yes, I said that right. A shifting face of dirt. In the ground. I seriously just wanted to wake up from this dream. No more dying from poison coursing through my veins, or slithering drakons, or boys in ruined throne rooms, or kissing in a bubble underwater. This was just too much. Way, WAY too much._

_ "Soon," the voice whispered. It seemed to be coming from the ground. It was a sleepy woman's voice, but distinctively evil. "Soon, my little heroine. You won't meet your little hero for a while longer, but when you do…." The woman tittered. "Beware, Annabeth Chase. Beware."_

* * *

**I woke with a start. **

I couldn't remember anything from my dream, but, as crickets chirped outside of the Athena cabin as the sun slowly rose on the horizon, one name, and one name only was prominent in my mind. It didn't make much sense, and it made me wonder what my seven year-old self was dreaming about.

_Gaea._

A strange name, to be sure.

I wondered why I would ever think or dream that…


	11. Wax

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. **

**Rating: T**

**This prompt comes from an idea by Athenachild101. THANK YOU Athenachild101! YOU HAVE SAVED ME HEADACHES!**

**A brief synopsis: Annabeth didn't take the knife for Percy in ****_The Last Olympian, _****leading to painful consequences.**

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Wax

**When I was six years old, my father took me to the wax museum.**

It had been one of the most truly terrifying times of my life. The wax statues had stared down at me, impassive and impossibly lifelike. They had all been painted with smiles, and their lipstick had sometimes seemed garish. I had wanted to touch them all, but the sign saying 'HANDS OFF' had put an end to that. Mostly, I had just stayed in the middle, wanting to sink into the floor and _run._ Now, as I looked down at Percy, I thought of the wax statues, and the little beads of sweat that had appeared on their brow. Percy was looking more and more like a statue and less and less like my best friend.

Tears pricked in my eyes as I held his hand. It was limp, like a rag doll, and I would have given _anything _to have it be full of life and squeeze my hand back. "Percy-" I began, but my voice broke. Percy was dying, and everyone around me knew it. Yet, as I sat there, looking down at him, I wanted to push everybody away and scream at them. _Don't you know that he's dying! _I wanted to shout. _Don't you know that you're not doing him any good! _Of course, that would be hypocritical. I was crowding him, I knew he was dying, and I wasn't doing Percy Jackson one bit of good.

A sob hitched in the back of my throat. _Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, _I silently chanted. My father used to tell me a saying by Alice Walker. It used to go something like this: **'The most important question in the world is, "Why is the child crying?"' **It had stuck with me throughout my years, because I had finally begun to understand why my father loved the saying. There was no use in crying without a reason. Crying was only justified by a means to cry, and as I sat there, Percy slowly dying in front of me, it seemed like my heart was shattering into a million pieces. This was a reason for crying, and so I let the tears spill down my face.

Memories with Percy flashed before my eyes. A volcano, a year ago, the sweltering heat nearly unbearable, and the impulsive kiss that I had given him. Percy, holding the world on his shoulders, just to save me. A chariot race, when I was only thirteen, with the hot sun beating down on our backs, and the sweet taste of victory. A boy, collapsing on a porch, exhaustion finally making him fall. My first sentence that I ever said to him, "You drool when you sleep." They flashed in front of my eyes, tantalizing me, and that was when I finally let it go.

I sobbed, holding his arm to my chest. No one made a move to stop me. Slowly, his hand began to grow limper and limper, his eyes fluttering shut. I touched a hand to his face. He chuckled weakly. "Some death, huh?" he said, his voice hoarse and whispery. Tears spilled down my face, and I shook my head.

I was about to say, "You idiot", a phrase that I probably would have said many times before. This was a moment when there was little time to waste, and so, I pressed a kiss to his lips. His eyes opened wide, and a little bubble of hysterical laughter escaped from me. "I love you," I said weakly.

Those were the last words that I would ever say to Perseus Jackson before he died.

The battle had gone on. We had won, just barely, with more casualties that you could count. I had killed Luke, tricking him into thinking that I was on his side, and then stabbing him in cold blood. I had done everything mechanically. My heart felt empty. There seemed to be nothing that I could do. All I could see was Percy's lifeless face in front of my eyes, and that had haunted me for years to come.

Now, as I sat on the beach, the tide coming up to brush against my feet, clearing the sand wedged between my toes, I thought of Percy Jackson. It was months since I had seen his face, or heard his laugh, and with each passing day, I forgot a little more, and loved a little less. Some might have said that this was a blessing. But for me, it was a curse.

I had once loved two men: Luke Castellan, and Percy Jackson. Now both were dead.

**'The most important question is, "Why is the child crying?"'**

There was no easy answer for the question, but if I had to give an answer to the tears that were streaming down my face, it would be this:

I cried for the ones that I found, for the ones that I lost, for the one that was killed, and for the one that I killed.

That was why the child was crying.

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**A/N: This was a sad one-shot, definitely. I hoped you all liked it (despite the heaviness). **

**Thank you SO MUCH for reviews! Please review again!**


	12. Lungs

**Disclaimer: I. Do. Not. Own. Percy. Jackson. **

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (thank you SO much for giving me prompts. Seriously. THANK YOU.)**

**Synopsis: Annabeth spies on Percy battling the Minotaur when he first comes to camp...**

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Lungs

**I was going to kill Travis and Connor Stoll.**

There was no doubt in my mind about that fact. They were stupid boys; sons of Hermes who should keep their business to themselves and not bother anybody else with their troublesome nature. Unfortunately, they didn't take that advice very seriously. Even so, I had thought that they were smarter than this. If they wanted to prank the Aphrodite cabin, fine. Enjoy the high-pitched screams of squeamish little girls. If they wanted to trick the Demeter cabin and piss off Katie Gardener, fine. Enjoy hanging from the ceiling with your ankles bound in plants. If you even wanted to prank the _Apollo _cabin and get impaled with a dozen arrows, _fine. _Enjoy your painful death. I had (mistakenly, it seemed) assumed that the boys would have been smart enough not to prank the Athena cabin. Evidently, I was a lot stupider than I thought I previously was.

My hands clenched and unclenched into fists. Travis and Connor Stoll were dead. I was going to trudge through these woods and make absolutely certain that I found a nasty monster to throw them off of their game. People should not put tarantulas in the Athena cabin. It was a one-way ticket to the Underworld. Apparently, Travis and Connor had yet to learn this fact. I decided that I would help them along. As I stormed through the underbrush of the woods, I heard a shout.

My entire body went rigid. There was an unspoken rule at Camp Half-Blood that went a little something like this: when someone screams, it usually meant one of three things: A, someone had just been pranked by the Stoll brothers (the Athena cabin about an hour ago). B, someone in the Aphrodite cabin was having a bad hair day. Or, C, someone was about to die a very painful death. Seeing as how the scream was coming from outside the fringe of the woods and not from the general direction of the cabins, I decided to opt for the third one. I could always hope, after all.

I broke into a sprint, my legs moving faster and faster. Though I knew it was terrible to hope such a thing, I really, really wished that someone was in trouble and needed saving. I had been at camp for five years now, and I had never actually been of any use in a real fight outside of the capture the flag games that we played. Biting my lip, I increased my pace, ignoring my slipping and sliding feet in wet mud. My sneakers could squelch all they wanted; this could be the opportunity of a lifetime for me. I finally reached the edge of the forest, but I stood stock-still when I realized what I was seeing.

It was a boy, no more than eleven or twelve. He was thin and scrawny, with a mop of untidy black hair. As I saw who the boy was fighting, however, my jaw dropped. _No way, _I thought. _Is that…_The Minotaur stood in front of the boy, snorting and tossing its mane of flea-infested mangy brown hair. Its bronze ring glinted in its nostril, and it stomped forward, baring its teeth. It was disgusting, terrifying, and the chance I had been waiting my whole life for.

My legs froze. They stayed in the same spot, and, though my mind screamed to _move, _they stayed right where they were. It was as if I couldn't do anything but watch the battle. My eyes scanned, trying to assess the situation. The boy was aided by two other companions: a pretty woman in her late twenties or early thirties, and a satyr that I knew all too well. Sirens went off in my head. The satyr, a small thing named Grover, had been sent to a boarding school in New York City, and Chiron had come along. They had suspected that it was an incredibly powerful demigod, which would mean either the lady or the boy. From the way that the boy's eyes glinted in an otherworldly way, I would have to guess him, though he wasn't really the greatest spectacle. Scrawny, tiny, and about as strong as a butterfly. The boy was never going to survive this spectacle- somewhere in my heart, I knew that- but I couldn't bring myself to move. It was as if I was physically incapable of doing anything but standing there.

As I watched, the Minotaur lunged for the woman. My breath caught in my throat. The monster was _fast, _far quicker than any of the other monsters that we had battled at camp. He snorted, tossing his mane, and the woman dissolved into a shower of gold dust- just like a monster would. The boy cried out, a look of pure terror on his face. "_Mom_!" he shouted, his face a mask of terror. "_Mom_!"

_Move, Annabeth, _I told myself, but my feet were rooted to the spot. Pure terror kept me where I was. I was unable to do anything but watched, though it was killing me. The boy dropped Grover, who I now realized was unconscious: blood dripped from his mouth, dribbling down to his chin. My heart leapt in my throat. _Grover! _

When I was five years old, my father signed me up for a soccer team. It was pathetic, really: the jerseys were cotton shirts five sizes too big, the fields were huge, and my very first soccer game, a girl sat down on the field and picked flowers. It was ridiculous. The only good part were the snacks, and half of the time, people forgot to bring them.

My first game, I had barely even tried. I knew that we were going to lose, and I was right. After the game, my father pulled me aside. He took off his sunglasses, his eyes piercing, and he said, "Annabeth. Why did you stop trying?" I shrugged, squirming uncomfortably. My father was never good with small talk. There was a certain frank quality to all of his sentences that made me realize just why Athena had fallen in love with him. He had sighed. "Annabeth, you have lungs." He tapped his chest, where his lungs were. "Do you know why we have lungs?" I shook my head. "So that we can run. We run, and breathe, and live like the wind: changeable, fragile, bitter, cold- we can be anything, but we have to try. Do you understand?"

His words had stayed with me forever. The sight of Grover unconscious finally spurred something in me. Instead of staying to help, as I should have done, I started to run. Turning around, sprinting towards the Big House to get help, like a coward, I used my lungs, just as I had minutes before, and I ran, sprinting through streams, spider webs, leaves, and more. I ran, because I had to, and because I could. I was like the wind: changeable, fragile, bitter, cold- I could be anything.

Right then, I was a runner, who was using her lungs.

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**A/N: Yeah, so this is this chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it! **

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again, and I am still accepting prompts!**


	13. Impulsive Decisions

**Disclaimer: No.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU SO MUCH)**

**Synopsis: Annabeth's take on the kiss in ****_Battle of the Labyrinth_**

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Impulsive Decisions

**I felt my face draining of all color.**

"We have to get out-" I managed to say. My mind was whirling from all of the excess information that had somehow been squeezed into it. My hands were shaking. All I knew was one thing: we had to get out of Mount St. Helens, or we were both going to die.

A door slammed down the hallway. Beads of sweat ran down my arm. Turning, I heard the yipping and yapping of young telekhines. They scuttled along the floor, and the feeling that we had to get out was enforced more than ever. I gave Percy a desperate look, as if to say, _See? _

Percy swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. I knew the look that was on his face. It was the look that meant he was going to do something stupid, and probably get himself killed. He looked like he had some difficulty saying the words, but in a choked voice, he said, "Put your cap back on. Get out."

My jaw dropped. There were a load of telekhines chasing us. There was absolutely no way in hell that I was going to let him do this. My hands were shaking. Beyond that, I didn't want to lose _him. _"What?" I shrieked. "No! I'm not leaving you!" I was not going to leave Percy Jackson to die. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would ever budge on the subject, but Percy had a set to his jaw. I didn't want him to come out the victor, but I had to admit that it was a possibility.

"I've got a plan," he said, though his voice lacked all conviction whatsoever. My eyes welled with tears, though I wasn't sure if it was from the heat of the volcano or from the thought of losing Percy. "I'll distract them. You can use the metal spider- maybe it'll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what's going on."

I blinked back tears. "But you'll be killed!" Goddammit, why was he so difficult? I didn't want to leave him. My throat was closing up. I didn't even want to contemplate the thought of him being dead, let alone have the responsibility of his death on my hands. This was supposed to be my quest, and what had I done? I had gotten Percy killed. He had been on three incredibly dangerous quests before, but my quest was going to be the one that killed him. I swallowed, hugging my arms to my chest.

"It's fine. Besides, we've got no choice," he said quietly. I wanted to smack him across the face. We had a choice. We could both run for the high hills, screaming like a bunch of six year-old girls, and live to see the next day. In my heart, I knew that Percy would never do that; not while he had a chance to save people. It was the very reason I had fallen in love with him.

I stared at him. He was sweaty, with numerous cuts and bruises running up and down his arms and legs. His hair was plastered to his forehead with a sheen of sweat, and he gripped Riptide like his life depended on it- which, I supposed, it did. I swallowed. There was one thing that I had to do before I never saw him again. My heart jumped into my throat. I just needed to do one thing before I left him for dead. Just one thing.

I pulled him by his shirt and kissed him.

It was perhaps the worst timing ever and the best kiss. It was quick, brief, and my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, it was beating so hard. When I pulled back, Percy was standing there with a shocked expression on his face. His jaw nearly hit the floor. _Well, that settles how he feels about you, Annabeth, _I thought to myself glumly. I swallowed.

"Be careful, Seaweed Brain," I said, and then put on my cap and disappeared. For a moment, I stood there and watched him stare at the lava. He looked like a lost lamb, almost. The exits were all barred with telekhines. There was no way that he was ever going to survive this. I stood there, preserving my last image of him, and turned away.

As the metal spider scuttled along the stone, I couldn't help thinking of Percy. I had kissed him once before, on the cheek, as a sisterly kiss after a chariot race. My cheeks had been absolutely scarlet from embarrassment, as he clearly took it as a friendly kiss. Some part of me wondered what would happen if he did survive this, but I pushed it away, tears already streaming down my face. I didn't want to think about the kiss.

It had been an impulsive decision, just like Percy's choice to stay in the volcano. As I heard a scream from behind me, I wished that both of us had a little common sense not to make such impulsive decisions.

The tears didn't stop flowing for a long time.

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**A/N: Thus ends this chapter! I hope you all liked it! Thanks so much for reviews! Review again for this chapter! Let me know what you thought! I am accepting prompts!**

**-jilyjackson**

**(I dunno why I signed my name... *shrugs* Oh, well.)**


	14. Ƨwitched

**Disclaimer: Nope, sorry to disappoint you.**

**Rating: T **

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Instead of Annabeth being taken in ****_The Titan's Curse, _****Percy is taken instead.**

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Ƨwitched

**Once upon a time, there was a little girl.**

The little girl wasn't normal. She knew that from the first moment that she corrected her math teacher on her equations in kindergarten, and, through the years, nothing changed. The little girl was just a little bit off-kilter. When she tried to say hello to people at her school, they gave her odd looks and walked away. The little girl was odd. Nothing about her or her family was normal. The little girl never knew her mother's name. The only person who she could even consider a mother was a woman that hated her. The girl did the only thing that she could, considering the circumstances.

The little girl ran away from home. She met friends, loved, and lost it all again. By the time she arrived to the first place that she could ever call home, she was more than a little bit broken and more than just a little girl. She was years older than she should have been. The girl missed out on the one thing that the world treasured above all others: childhood. The little girl never found any reason to hope. Yet, just when things were looking bleak, she met a boy.

A love story was not something that she had ever understood. It was a foreign concept to her. All of her life, the little girl had been taught what it meant to be alone. Being alone wasn't something that you could explain. It was a heartache and longing for something that you didn't ever think that you would understand. It was immersing yourself in books and wishing that you could be the characters, because their reality was just so much better. It was spending days by yourself, or looking for partners to do an activity with, and finding nobody but yourself alone. The little girl wasn't alone, not really; she had everyone in her home, but it sometimes seemed that way.

The little girl loved one quote in particular. It was by a woman named Mother Teresa. It went a little something like this: _Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty. _It took a lonely person to know one. The little girl had friends once, but one was a tree, and another was distant every time she turned.

The little girl met a boy. He wasn't alone, and he wasn't smart. He was scrawny, and stupid, and had the worst sense of humor sometimes. Despite all of that, he knew how to make her laugh, and he seemed to turn the world a few shades brighter every time she met him. Now, a love story was something she understood, and comprehended. A love story was her life.

The little girl's name was Annabeth Chase, and at that moment, Annabeth was standing on the edge of a cliff. She stared down below her, where the drop faded into a blur of mist. She kicked her shoe, and a few pebbles fell down the cliff. Behind her, she heard a commotion. _Bianca, Nico, Thalia, and the Hunters, _she thought distractedly. Her thoughts were only for the little boy.

Annabeth had fallen in love with the little boy the previous summer, when he had suddenly become not-so-little anymore. His growth spurt had made him almost as tall as Annabeth, and his acne had diminished noticeably. Suddenly, the little boy was not so little anymore, and, though it had been unnerving, she had tried to make the best of it. Annabeth had gotten dressed up for him, crossing her fingers that he would catch her hint.

Now, it seemed as if the boy was even thicker than she had previously thought. Her hint was not meant to be taken as her consent for the boy to jump off of the cliff. She closed her eyes. "_Dammit, _Percy," she said, saying the boy's name for the first time since he had jumped off of the cliff. "God _dammit._"

"Wow. You're cursing. Never thought I'd see the day." Annabeth looked up, blinking, hoping to dispel the uncomfortable burning sensation in my eyes. Thalia was standing next to her, her hands shoved into her jean pockets. Her blue eyes were searching. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked quietly.

Annabeth choked out a laugh. "Me? I just saw my friend jump off of a cliff." A sob hitched in the back of her throat. She pushed it back down with some force. "Yeah. I'll be fine. No biggie. Fine. F-I-N-E. That spells fine!" She gave her a cheery smile.

"Okay. That was one too many fines," Thalia said, turning to her. Her eyes were searching. "You like him, don't you?" she said, her eyes resigned. She pressed her lips down into a firm line, swearing under her breath.

"Of course I like him. He's my friend." Annabeth averted her eyes, knowing that if she looked at Thalia, her expression would tell me what she already knew: that was not what she had meant when she asked Annabeth the question.

"Annabeth…" Thalia said, her tone warning.

She sighed, throwing up her hands. "I don't know! I don't know! I- it's complicated, okay? My heart does this funny thing when I'm around him, like it skips a beat. I'm sort of wondering if I should go to a doctor, actually, but then I feel the butterflies, and I'm thinking, uh-oh. Wait. Do I- have a crush on Percy? But that seems ridiculous, because he's idiotic and stupid the first moment, and then sweet and funny the next, and now he's _gone, _and I don't want him to be gone! He was right _here_!" Annabeth shouted, pointing to the ground. "He was right here! Where the hell did he go?" she whispered, hugging my arms to her chest. "Where the hell did he go?"

Thalia stared at me. Her jaw dropped, and then, quickly, she gave me a hug. I stood there, frozen, tears streaking down my face. Thalia didn't give hugs. She did a lot of things, but giving hugs wasn't one of them. She pulled back. "Look," she said, her eyes honest. "I don't give hugs, and I don't give promises. I'm a sucky hugger, and a shitty promise keeper. But I will tell you this: I think Jackson is an idiot, but you like him, and right now, that's what matters, right?" She wiped away a tear from my cheek. "We'll find him, Annabeth. I promise. I swear it on the River Styx."

As thunder crackled on the distance, Annabeth was reminded of a little girl watching a little boy drool when he slept. She was reminded of how children shied away from a little girl, but an older girl and boy decided to give her a chance. Right then, Annabeth decided to honor that chance. She gave Thalia a chance to prove herself a good promise-keeper.

"Okay," she said.

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**A/N: Done! Sorry that this is in third-person. I just finished writing a prologue for one of my other stories, and it's told by a narrator (a challenge... we'll see how that goes :/) so I accidentally wrote this in third-person, but of course, I didn't realize that until I was done. Oh, well. I hope that you guys enjoyed this! Still daily (whoop whoop)!**

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again!**


	15. My Angel

**Disclaimer: Yada yada, don't own Percy Jackson, yada yada.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt: This idea came from my own head, but it was inspired by a ****_Doctor Who _****episode in Series 2, ****_Girl in the Fireplace, _****and the soundtrack to go along with that episode, ****_Madame de Pompadour. _**

**Synopsis: A/U. Annabeth's angel.**

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**One may suffer a world of demons for the sake of an angel.**

**-Jeanette Antoinette Poisson; Madame de Pompadour; _Doctor Who_**

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My Angel

_**The spiders came at night.**_

_They never seemed to leave. They crawled up my sheets, clinging to the soft cotton. At first, I would kick and scream. I would shout and sob for help. My screams were only heard by my ears. It was as if nobody could hear them beyond my bedroom door. My spiders were all my own. They were my nightmare, but my nightmare was not like the other boys' and girls'. My nightmare was my waking, living reality. Every time I opened my eyes, I saw the spiders, crawling up my arms, in my hair, making webs on my bed. _

_My stepmother thought that I was a liar. My father never stayed around long enough to hear my pleas. At first, I thought I was going mad. My dreams had become real- that was the stuff of fairytales, and I was no princess. My spiders were all in my mind, and as I scratched and sobbed and screamed my way through the night, waking up with purplish-bluish smudges under my eyes and no silky webs woven on my bed, I thought I was going insane. _

_The barrier between dreams and reality seemed to be crumbling, the bricks slowly chipping and cracking into nothingness. My spiders weren't real. They couldn't be. They were the stuff of nightmares, and my nightmares, real as they seemed, were nothing but a dream. It was like the children's song: row, row, row your boat, gently up the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. My life was but a dream. _

_I was close to giving up. It became hard. The shouts of my stepmother, the absence of my father, my wailing brothers that were a part of the perfect family that I would never be included in, the odd looks and whispers from children at school, and the word 'schizophrenia' that made my life a living hell. My reality was just as much a nightmare as the spiders. I almost wished that the spiders were real, some days. I was so very close to giving up when the woman came._

_It was in the middle of the night, and I had shouted a word that I had never uttered in my entire life: 'Mommy'. It was not a familiar term to me; I had never had a mother, but at that moment, I was so very tired. I had shouted 'Mommy' while the spiders crawled at me. In that moment, the moonlight filtering through the window in my bedroom seemed to solidify. _

_It was a woman. It was not one that I had ever seen before, and she hardly looked to be real. She was translucent, like mist or fog, and, as she stepped forward, her dress of moonlight billowing around her hair, she smiled at me. "Annabeth," she said, her voice melodic and low, tinged with an unidentifiable accent. _

_ "__Mommy?" I said, my face streaked with tears. The ghost just smiled at me, her misty form shimmering. "Who are you?" I said softly. The spiders seemed to be crawling away, retreating to the shadows. "Who are you?" I said, louder this time. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my bedroom?"_

_ "__Annabeth," the woman said again. She glided forward to me, tilting her head and smiling kindly. "Your mother loves you," she said. I blinked. How could this woman know the slightest thing about my mother?_

_ "__So you are not my mother?" I asked, crawling forward on my bed. "Who are you?" I whispered. A sob hitched in the back of my throat. "I'm crazy," I said quietly. "I'm crazy, aren't I? You're not real. You can't possibly be real."_

_ "__I am real, I assure you," the woman said. She came forward, and sat down on her bed, her hair billowing around her. "Your mother sent me. Not all children of her have such horrible experiences." The woman tucked a stray strand of frizzy blonde hair behind my ear. "Little Annabeth. These spiders are not a dream. Your nightmares are real." _

_ "__R-real?" I stammered. _

_ "__Yes," the woman said. "Listen to me closely. I don't have much time. The spiders are real, and so is the one who is sending them to haunt you. She waits for you, though it will be many years before you meet the mother of all the spiders." She gave me a soft smile. "It will not be so hard, then. You will have your angel."_

_ "__M-my… angel?" I said. It seemed impossible. I let out a brief laugh. "What could my angel possibly have to do with anything? What could it possibly even mean?" I hugged my arms to my chest. "Why hasn't my angel come before now?"_

_ "__Your angel has nightmares of his own," the woman told me. "It is haunted by its own destiny. But he will come for you. Part of the journey you must do on your own, but most of your trek will be with your angel." She waved her hand, and through the mist, I saw a boy. He looked to be about my age, with a messy mop of black hair and green eyes the color of the sea. He was shaking in his bed, a sheen of sweat on his face. I looked up at her, confused, but the woman seemed to be dissolving into mists. She leaned in close, and then, whispering in my ear, she said, "Your angel is coming. The spiders are leaving. Run, Annabeth. Run away." _

_She faded into moonlight once more._

* * *

**I looked down at the boy in front of me.**

He had collapsed on the Big House porch hours ago, half-dragging Grover with him. I didn't know the boy's name, but I recognized him instantly. I was supposed to be watching over him, but I felt something stir in my heart. I had caught a glimpse of his eyes before he collapsed: green, like the sea. His messy black mop of hair was tousled, and sweat beaded on his forehead, just as I had seen him five years ago. It seemed so long- I had been a different girl, then, in a different life.

Hesitantly, I reached out and brushed away a fringe of hair that was in his eyes. I smiled at him, tilting my head. My gray eyes were sad as I looked at him. There was no mistake- he was the one that I had been waiting for my entire life. My heart thrummed in my throat as I leaned down close, and uttered the words that I had been waiting to say since that fateful night in autumn.

"My angel," I whispered.

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**A/N: Okay, so I kind of rushed this. I'm really very sorry about that. I have to write this tonight. I locked myself in my room, because I forgot to clean the kitchen earlier today, and now my laptop is being taken away for who knows how long. I'm going to try and rewire my dad's old laptop secretly, but this will be tomorrow's update. I am so, so, SO sorry. A little rushed, but oh well. **

**Also, a little note on this chapter: as I said before, this came from an idea from one of my favourite episodes of ****_Doctor Who. _****It's called ****_The Girl in the Fireplace, _****and the soundtrack to go with it is absolutely beautiful. It's called ****_Madame de Pompadour, _****and if you go on YouTube and search 'Doctor Who Madame De Pompadour Soundtrack', it should show up. Give it a listen if you have time. **

**Alright. Got to go. Mom's screaming at me (yikes!). I hope you all liked this chapter, sketchy and not proof-read as it may be.**

**Thanks for the reviews! Let me know what you think!**


	16. The Streets of Life and Love

**Disclaimer: Do we need to be asking this question? Exactly. No, I don't own Percy Jackson.**

**Rating: T (swearing a bit more intense in this chapter; just a warning)**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Annabeth plans to set out to find the Sirens from ****_The Sea of Monsters _****in hopes that they could tell her something about Percy's disappearance. Set post ****_The Lost Hero. _**

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The Streets of Life and Love

**"****Annabeth, this is madness!"**

Annabeth Chase turned around to meet the stormy blue eyes of her friend. "No, actually, it's not. It's a pretty good lead, when you think about it," she said, not missing a beat and continuing on her rampage, quickening her pace. The campers of Camp Half-Blood parted for her like the Red Sea, knowing better than to question Annabeth when she was angry. Thalia Grace followed her, the hunter's nostrils flaring.

"It's not a pretty good lead; it's a pretty good way to get you killed, when you think about it," Thalia said, glaring at Annabeth murderously and stepping in front of her. Apparently, the Hunter of Artemis didn't share the same wise scruples as the rest of Camp Half-Blood. "This is insane. There is absolutely no way that I am letting you go. Period." She set her jaw, crossing her arms as if she had the right to finalize the decision.

Annabeth stared at her friend. "Well, that's good, then," she said, moving around her. "The decision's not up to you. I am going to do this, Thals. It may-" A strangled noise forced its way out of her throat. She looked up at Thalia through blurry eyes. "You know."

"He wouldn't want you to _throw away your life _for him!" Thalia exclaimed. "This is where I draw the line. I've put up with the endless nights of no sleep and seeing you stumble around like a zombie, and the muttering wildly to yourself, and the incessant research, but this is where I draw the line. You're not going on this quest. Chiron will never approve. This 'mission' that you're going on? You'll never make it back alive. It's a one-way trip to the Underworld."

Annabeth stared at the girl in front of her. "I'm going on a quest to find the Sirens," she said, her lip trembling. "What I want most in the world right now is to find-" her voice broke. "Is to find- to find- you know," she said, finally giving up and choosing to ignore Thalia's look of pity. "They Sirens are in the Sea of Monsters- I know where to find them. Give me a couple of weeks, and I'll be at their doorstep. I'll tie myself up, disarm myself, and they'll show me finding- you know. Maybe they'll show me _where _to find them."

"What about the other members of your crew? Are you going to put them at risk?" Thalia shouted. "I know you've done this before with Percy, but you survived _because _of Percy. Think about it, Annabeth. Would he really want you to throw away your life for him? Hmm?"

"There won't be other members of my crew," she replied, crossing her arms. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, Thalia, but I'm going. And, quite honestly, I really don't think that you know what it's like to be inside of Percy's head, so back off, please."

"I'm not going to back off! This is crazy!" Thalia stared at her. "You're throwing away your life stupidly, Annabeth. You've done a whole lot of pretty dumb things in your life, but this is taking the cake. Why would you ever, _ever _do this?" The question seemed to hang in the middle of them, taunting and tantalizing. Thalia plopped her hands on her hips, still absolutely furious.

Annabeth stared at Thalia. They were standing about fifty feet from the Big House, and at this point, she didn't think she'd ever get past the hunter with all of this argument in time to ask Chiron for a quest. "Tell me, Thalia," she said quietly. "Have you ever been in love? Do you know what it's like to go to bed with your life out of the happy ending of a Hans Christian Anderson book, and wake up in hell? Do you know what that's like?"

"You know what, Annabeth?" Thalia said. "Yeah." She ran a hand through her short black hair. "Yeah, I do. Try falling in love with a boy who ended up being a villain. Try going to sleep one day with friends, and a way out of your hellish situation, and waking up- well, you don't wake up, actually, because you're a pine tree. You want to bitch about your life situation? Well, take a number. I'm gonna tell you a couple of things, and you're going to listen, okay?" She took a step forward.

Annabeth felt like she had all of the wind knocked out of her. "Luke?" she said, half in a murmur. "Oh, my gods. You were in love with Luke, weren't you?" The pieces of a puzzle that Annabeth had been trying to figure out her entire life seemed to fit together seamlessly, clicking perfectly.

"Yeah. I was," Thalia said, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I'm a Hunter of Artemis, Annabeth. Don't get me wrong, the Hunters are amazing, but nobody joins them unless they have a reason. A really, _really _good reason. Take a look at Zoë, or even Bianca, who lived the past six and a half decades in a hotel." Her eyes were blazing. "Now, you're going to go back into the Athena cabin, and I'm going to tell you exactly what you're going to do. You're going to sit on that bed and think. You're going to picture what happens when Percy comes home and finds out that his girlfriend is dead in a desperate burst of stupidity that she thought might help her find him. You're going to think about what Percy would say if he were here. Love is a two-way street, Annabeth Chase. Life is one-way."

_Love is a two-way street, Annabeth Chase. Life is one-way. _Annabeth blinked up at Thalia, who was glaring at her. All of a sudden, she felt like crying. Steeling herself, she managed to hold back the tears. She had broken down enough times in the past three weeks. "It's just not fair," she said, the only words that she could think to say.

Thalia choked out a laugh. "Hell no, it's not. Life and love are both concepts that I sometimes think should be wiped out from the world sometimes. They cause a whole lot of pain." She smiled sadly at me. "Then I see some things that make me change my mind. I see you and Percy together, and I see the life that you're going to have someday, when this little parade of torture is all over." Thalia brushed a wayward strand of hair from behind Annabeth's ear and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Love was a two-way street. Life was a one-way street. Sometimes, you could go to sleep with your life the perfect ending of a Hans Christian fairy tale, and wake up with your life a living, hellish nightmare. You could have life change for you with the snap of fingers. Life, love, and hell were strange things, though. You couldn't have one without the other. In that moment, Annabeth had never resented that fact so much in her entire life, but as she leaned on Thalia, so very, very tired, she figured that she'd live a little longer, and put just a little more faith in Leo, Piper, and Jason.

"C'mon, kiddo," Thalia said, smiling down at Annabeth. "Let's get you back to your cabin."

* * *

**A/N: Wow. I managed to publish this O_O. My dad's computer didn't work, so I just kind of snuck on my desktop computer... Eh. Anyway, sorry about a) more intense swearing, and b) the sucky title. Really. It was pretty bad, sorry. **

**Thanks for the reviews! Please let me know what you thought about this chapter!**


	17. Puzzle Pieces

**Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Percy Jackson; sorry to disappoint you.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (****THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Annabeth realizes, in all finality, that Percy Jackson has indeed gone missing. Set right before ****_The Lost Hero_****.**

* * *

Puzzle Pieces

**The girl hurried through the streets of New York City, her head down in the rain.**

Her black hair whipped around her face, wet water droplets from the downpour flying each and every way as she quickened her pace. As she passed people in the street, they seemed to look right through her, as if she were invisible- and perhaps this was for the best; that they did not see the silver longbow on her back and the gleaming quiver of arrows. Ignorance was bliss, after all. They hadn't the slightest idea what was running through the girl's mind.

The girl continued her quick pace, and then suddenly veered off to the right sharply, walking into a dank alleyway. If any other person saw this, they would be puzzled. It was two o' clock in the morning in New York, and the city was not in a forgiving mood: ashy gray clouds completely obscured the moon and stars from sight, and cold rain poured down onto the streets in an unforgiving torrential rain so freezing it was nearly sleet. It was the sort of neighborhood in New York City where the sound of police sirens was a constant background noise and shadows lurked on corners. The girl, a pretty, thin, willowy thing with piercing blue eyes and sloping cheekbones, looked no older than nineteen- she shouldn't have been out on the streets. Yet, if one cared to look a little closer, and saw the sinewy muscles on her arms, or the way that she held herself, like a warrior, or, at the very least, the stormy look in her eyes, they would have kept their mouths shut. This was not a girl to be toyed with.

In the alleyway, another girl was waiting. This one was slightly shorter than the other girl, with a dark, chestnut braid, sharp, attentive eyes, and a pointed chin. She spoke to the black-haired girl in urgent whispers. "Do you have any information?" Though the brown-haired girl had a curled lip that suggested she could care less about information, the urgency of her tone betrayed the suggestion.

"Phoebe, calm yourself," the black-haired girl said. Phoebe glared at the other girl, who merely sighed. "No. I don't know what's going on, and it's not good. Artemis is missing, and so are… others." The black-haired girl looked troubled. She bit her lip, the first signs of uncertainty showing in her blue eyes. "Phoebe, I think… I think Percy Jackson is missing."

Phoebe snorted. "I know, Thalia. Annabeth said that he'd gone away from camp for a few days, probably to visit his mother. She said that he does that every once in a while. What makes this visit any more special? So Artemis isn't around. What's the big deal?"

Thalia pursed her lips. "That's the thing. When I spoke to Annabeth, she looked worried, and it's not natural for her to be worried. She had no idea that Jackson was going to visit his mom, and that's not normal. I checked on Sally's- that's Jackson's mother- apartment, and Percy wasn't there." She set her jaw. "Phoebe, I'm almost sure of it. Percy Jackson has gone missing."

The brown-haired girl's face whitened to the pallor of double-burnt ashes as lightning flashed in the distance, the rumble of thunder echoing in the night.

* * *

**About sixty miles north, another girl was walking on the beach.**

Rain pattered all around her, soaking her honey-blonde hair. The girl's shoulders seemed to be slumped a bit as she strolled. She dug her barefoot toes into the wet sand, the gravelly substance coating her feet. Waves roared and pounded against the beach harshly, sending up a wave of sea foam to tickle the girl's feet and wash the sand away, back into the ocean.

The girl didn't seem to mind that her hair was thoroughly soaked, her hair hanging in ratty tangles, or that her orange t-shirt was soaked through, making her shiver in the cool air. She looked utterly miserable, but it wasn't because of the dreary weather conditions. It was because of a gut feeling that the girl had learned to trust over the years; a gut feeling that told the girl what she already knew.

Just then, in front of her, the sea spray mist shimmered, and a girl came into view. Like the blonde-haired girl, Thalia was soaked through to the bone. Her worried eyes told the girl what she already knew. She pressed her lips firmly down together, trying not to cry. _An Iris message, _the blonde-haired girl thought bitterly. _That's how I find out he is missing. By an Iris message._

"Annabeth, I'm so sorry," Thalia said. Annabeth stood there, and Thalia opened her lips. She was saying something, Annabeth knew, but she couldn't hear it. All that came out was silence, as thick and deafening as a roar of a crowd. There was only one sentence that came through the barrier and penetrated Annabeth's hearing: "Percy's missing."

Hope was a funny thing. It was tentative, and not very stable, but as Annabeth stood there, the sea foam lapping against her ankles, sand wedged between her toes, her clothes sopping wet, the last little spark of hope that she possessed was gone. Thalia kept talking, rambling on about how they would find him, and he was alive- Annabeth couldn't even bear to think about that sentence. Percy couldn't be dead. He just _couldn't_- and it would all be okay. Of course, at that moment, Thalia was lying through her teeth.

Annabeth turned her face up to the storm clouds. She turned away from the Iris-message, ignoring Thalia's shouts in an attempt to get back her attention. Quietly, murmured so softly that only she could hear it, she whispered, "Percy, where are you?"

* * *

**Miles and miles away, a boy was sleeping.**

His eyes were closed, and a mop of jet-black hair nearly obscured his forehead from view. A thin line of drool snaked from the corner of his mouth, and he laid on the floor, snoring gently. A wolf stood over him, her form powerful and deadly, with silver fur, gleaming eyes, and teeth the color of ivory.

"This is what she gives me to work with," the wolf said, nudging the boy with her snout. The wolf was surrounded by a whole pack, though they were not the ordinary types of wolves that one might see in the wilderness. They were taller, tougher, more muscular, and infinitely more dangerous.

"Lupa?" The voice came from a young wolf, small and bronze-colored. Snarls rippled through the pack as a small feminine wolf stepped forward, her fur rippling in the light. "He is not like the others. Why are we training him?"

"'Not like the others'," Lupa mused, glaring at the small, feminine, bronze wolf. "Tell me, young one, does he have a heart?" The small wolf nodded, her eyes uncertain. "What about a nose? A mouth? Two eyes? Two ears?" Again, for each one, the small wolf nodded. "That is good enough for me," Lupa announced. The wolves shifted uneasily. "Unless you would all like to be thrown out on the streets, just as you were planning to do with this boy?"

Deafening silence echoed throughout the wolf house.

"Very good," Lupa said. "Now we begin." She turned her snout down to him, her lip curling in distaste. "We have a lot of work set out for ourselves."

* * *

**Miles away, up in the sky, a goddess was sitting on a throne.**

Her long, silver hair tumbled down her shoulders in ringlets. Her ankles were crossed as she laid back in her throne, staring at three, shimmery images before her with a bemused smile playing at her lips. She drummed her fingernails on the rest of her armchair, the sound echoing throughout the empty throne room of the gods.

For a moment, she seemed to shimmer, her long dress disappearing in favor of a goatskin cape and black robes, her hair becoming browner, her eyes taking on a tinge just a little younger. It was just for a moment, like in an old movie tape, and then she was herself again. The goddess massaged her temples, but she looked pleased with the scenes in front of her.

The one on the far left showed a girl with black hair, blue eyes next to a girl with a chestnut braid and a worried expression- Thalia, the goddess remembered, and Phoebe. The one in the middle showed a tall, athletic girl with sopping wet hair and clothes, her gray eyes worried. This one, the woman knew without having to strain her memory. Annabeth. She let out a laugh. Her curse from the labyrinth had been a bit more than cow shit. The last one on the far right showed a boy, in the middle of a pack of wolves, like Mowgli from _The Jungle Book_, a silly little mortal interpretation of Roman myths.

The goddess was Hera, and she was putting her puzzle into piece. It was a complex puzzle, of seven demigods, of different gods and goddesses, different sides of an empire, and different beliefs. As she placed each puzzle piece, she curved up her lips into a full smile, speaking the words that would place the final puzzle piece- a boy named Jason Grace- into place.

"Soon," she murmured. "Very, very soon."

* * *

**A/N: Still daily! Woo-hoo! Yeah, this is today's prompt. It was in Hera's point of view- I'm not sure how clear I made that, I think it might have been a little ambiguous, sorry- so it had a little bit of a different spin on it... I hope. **

**Thanks so much for the reviews! Please review again! I would love more prompts!**


	18. Of Spiders and Shopping Lists

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, but I do share arachnophobia with Annabeth.**

**Rating: T**

**Synopsis: Annabeth and Percy bought a new apartment, but little do they know there is already something residing in it...**

* * *

Of Spiders and Shopping Lists

**I drummed my fingers on the laminate countertop.**

My eyes looked around the apartment cryptically. It wasn't fancy, or posh, or even remotely luxurious, but it was mine. Well, not exactly _mine, _per say. It was ours. A smile broke out onto my face as my lips curved upwards. The apartment was small, a little grungy, and only two bedrooms. The view in the one window was of a brick wall, the neighborhood was loud, and there was hardly room for a table in the kitchen. It was cramped, smelly, and, as I looked at it, I only had one thought: I absolutely _loved _it.

I turned back to Percy, who was slouching to get in through the low doorway. I nearly clapped my hands together in delight. "It's _perfect,_" I said, ignoring his dubious look. For one of the first times in my life, I was giddy- not delighted, not happy, genuinely, slap-happy, _giddy. _"I love it already."

"That's good," Percy said, scratching his head and looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "Er… you do? Love it, I mean?" He looked clueless as to why I would love such a small, dirty apartment. I smiled devilishly, and he whitened. "Oh, no," he muttered. "That look is never good…"

"It's a fixer-upper!" I exclaimed. "Just imagine it. A fresh coat of paint on these walls- something yellow, I think, for a kitchen- and maybe some new flooring- probably either tile or hardwood, I haven't decided yet. We'll get new furniture, new appliances-" I swung open the white, oil-stained microwave, wrinkling my nose at a piece of moldy pizza still harbored within. I slammed the door shut. "_Definitely _new appliances, then." I grinned, turning back to my boyfriend. "What do you think?"

He shook his head ruefully, tossing me a lopsided smile. "I think I finally just realized why you bought the cheapest apartment." He leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen, smiling at me. I rolled my eyes at him, trying to resist the urge to dance around the kitchen.

"I've dreamed of the day that I get to design my own apartment since I was seven years old," I told him. I hugged my arms to my chest, looking up at the ceiling of the apartment. "I know it's not perfect, trust me. I know it's not exactly what we envisioned, but-" I grinned. "This is going to be _so _much more fun."

Percy laughed, his eyes straying up to the ceiling. "You know what's going to be _really _fun?" he said, his mouth twitching. I started to get a suspicion, and I narrowed my eyes at him, backing up a few paces.

"What?" I said suspiciously, furrowing my eyebrows at him. Percy said nothing, simply pointing up at the ceiling above my head. My heart sinking, I turned my gaze upwards, and let out a huge, bloodcurdling scream. I scrambled away, looking at what was hanging from the ceiling. My heart raced in my chest. _"Kill it!_" I screamed. _"Kill it! Goddammit, Percy, don't just stand there, kill the effing spider!"_

Percy laughed. My eyes were fixated on the monster wolf spider scuttling on the ceiling, its hairy limbs frozen. I could feel the blood slowly draining from my face as he continued laughing as I shrieked and screamed. He calmly went over to the sink, got a paper towel, and smashed the wolf spider. I was near tears. He came over by me, dangling the paper towel in front of my face with a devious smile. One hairy leg dangled from the napkin, hanging out. A shriek froze in my throat. I stared at my boyfriend.

"You bastard, get that _thing out of this apartment before I smack you into the next dimension_!" I shouted, my hands shaking. My chest heaved as Percy dropped the napkin into the trash can, still chuckling at me. "It is _not _funny," I told him, my tone venomous. I turned around on my heel, moving to stalk out of the apartment.

"Where are you going?" Percy called, leaning against the sink, a grin on his face. "Running away from the battle? How cowardly, Wise Girl." He looked like he was trying hard not to double over laughing. I resisted the urge to slap him.

I set my jaw. "I have a little bit of shopping to do."

"Oh, yeah?" Percy said. "And just what, exactly, is on that list?"

"A broom, three pairs of cheap, spider-killing flip flops, a duster, sealing tape, and twenty bottles of Raid," I told him, my nose up in the air.

I stormed out of the apartment, deciding to ignore my boyfriend's snickering.

* * *

**A/N: This one? Not my best writing. I hope that you all found it funny, at the very least. I need prompts. This shows how much my imagination _sucks. _Really. I also share Annabeth's fear of spiders. In fact, I was going to research spiders in New York City, and I came across a page on brown recluse spiders. I told myself not to read it, but did I listen? No. A fly buzzed in front of my face and I screamed. I am now scarred forever.**

**Anyway, thanks for the review! Please review for this chapter!**


	19. Lots and Lots of Rings

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Percy Jackson, and I never will.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Percy goes shopping for a _very _special present for Annabeth...**

* * *

Lots and Lots of Rings

**Percy was about two skips and a hop away from throwing the saleswoman out the window. **

He could handle just about anything: huge monsters, evil Titans, incredibly devious Mother Nature, the list just went on and on. That being said, he didn't think he was going to be able to take one more word out of the peppy, overly bright saleswoman's mouth. Percy wanted to smack her into the next dimension. It was safe to say that this woman was _severely _testing his anger management- or, rather, lack thereof.

"-and _this _ring was custom-made in Belgium. It's beautiful, don't you think?" the saleswoman said, opening a small box with a _clop _and propping it open. To be completely honest, Percy thought it was pretty much the same as the past sixty boxes that she had showed him. Did it really matter if it was from Belgium, or had rhinestones, not diamonds, set into the ring? Frankly, Percy thought it all _looked _the same, but the saleswoman had promptly told him "It's the quality that counts."

Which pretty much went against everything he ever learned. Wasn't the phrase "It's the thought that counts"? He had actually told the saleswoman this, but she had promptly tittered and smacked him on the elbow (which, surprisingly enough, still hurt. Percy made a mental note not to get into fights with feisty- albeit delusional- saleswomen.), saying that his girlfriend wouldn't feel the same way.

Percy was almost _dying _for her to see Annabeth. Just the thought of them having a conversation brought a smile tugging at Percy's lips. Of course, Annabeth couldn't be here for her engagement ring shopping, which kind of put a damper on the idea, but it still made the whole ugly ordeal more bearable. Percy had come into the shop to buy a ring… about two hours ago. He had put this trip at thirty minutes, _tops. _

He glanced towards the window, which was looking very appealing. Percy made a mental note to test the glass next time the saleswoman led him over there. "Ahem?" A voice startled him out of his reverie. The saleswoman had crossed her arms and was tapping her foot impatiently. "Don't you think that it's beautiful?"

Percy resisted the urge to groan, instead just clasping his hands together in a plea. "Yes. It's gorgeous. Now, I came in here about two hours ago, hoping to buy a ring for my girlfriend, and I've been here about an hour and a half too long. _Way _too long. So can I please, please, please-"

"See our specialty selection?" the saleswoman cut in, her pearly teeth flashing. "Absolutely, darling. Don't worry, we're nearly to the good stuff." She winked at him conspicuously, bustling off in her sky-high heels, no doubt going off to retrieve a ring that looked _exactly like _the last one.

Percy glanced towards the wall. It was looking very attractive at the moment. He wondered how many times he'd have to bang his head against it for him to go unconscious. Eleven? Twelve? Twenty?

"Now _this _one was specialty made with inset sapphires and rubies-"

Percy moaned. When was this ever going to end?

* * *

**Annabeth should've said no.**

In fact, she _definitely _should've said no. Belatedly, she wondered if it was still too late to change her mind. She was standing in front of the shop, after all, but what if she made up some excuse? She could imitate her phone, and pretend there was an emergency. Her friend could get stabbed by a sword, or her boyfriend could have found a pile of unidentified goo in their living room (that wouldn't be the first time that had happened, surprisingly enough)…

"Annabeth?" She turned her head up, seeing Frank stare at her woefully. Sighing, Annabeth put the excuses out of her mind. Frank genuinely needed her help. He was going to propose to Hazel over the weekend, and desperately needed a girl's advice. Annabeth had _tried _to tell him that she probably wasn't the best girl to ask for that- she wasn't even remotely girly. Frank had put this aside, saying that Annabeth would know more than he would, which was probably true, but there were other reasons for her dreading the ring-shopping trip.

She glanced down at her left hand, seeing her bare ring finger. She and Percy had been dating for nine years, and he still hadn't proposed. Granted, some of those nine years were when they were teenagers, but it was still painful to see the ring on Piper's finger, the ring on Calypso's finger, and now, the ring on Hazel's finger. Annabeth bit back her frustration. She was helping her friend, and that was all that mattered.

"Yeah, I'm coming," she told Frank, plastering a faux smile onto her face. Annabeth looked up at the sign of the store. It looked posh, and also very extensive. Rings really weren't all that big. How could an engagement ring store be this huge?

Frank gave her a grateful smile and stepped forward, swinging open the door. A little bell tinkled as they stepped into the starchy ring store, and Annabeth's jaw nearly hit the floor. The store wasn't just extensive; it was positively _monstrous. _She brushed her fingers along a row of rings. Closing her eyes, she glanced towards the wall, wondering how many times she would have to bang her head against it to go unconscious. Eleven? Twelve? Twenty?

"Hello! Welcome to Williams A. Burton jewelers! How may I help you today?" Annabeth turned, meeting the slightly-glazed eyes of a peppy saleswoman. She very nearly cried. This was not what she had in mind for a fun day. On Saturday, her day off, she actually wanted to just watch reruns of Full House on the television in her apartment, snoozing away. She had experienced a really, _really _busy week, and she wanted to sleep, not have her mind tortured by saleswomen.

"Um… hello," Frank said nervously. "Actually, I'm looking to buy an engagement ring. I see that you have a... extensive stock." He swallowed. "I actually brought along a friend to help me. Annabeth? Annabeth? Hello, earth to Anna-"

Annabeth's eyes had landed on somebody else in the store. Though his back was turned to her, she would know the messy mop of black hair anywhere. Her throat closed up. This was just _perfect. _Now she was really regretting coming. Though she knew that she should keep her mouth shut, she said the word that she knew she was going to regret.

"Percy…?"

* * *

**This just wasn't fair.**

Percy had put up with Snarky the Stupid Saleswoman, the Gazillion Rings of Gargantuan Stores, the Unbreakable Window, and the Stupidly Soft and Cushy Wall that Refused to Make You Go Unconscious. He had done all of that for two hours, and he heard Annabeth's voice behind him.

"Percy…?"

He turned, seeing a flustered Annabeth beside a stunned Frank and a very confused saleswoman. Her gray eyes were shining. In that moment, Percy made a split-second decision. Sure, his split-second decisions hadn't been exactly genius in the past, but Percy had faith in this one. With a delicate snatch, he grabbed the latest ring from the saleswoman- a pretty one, with a silver band a teardrop-shaped diamond- and closed the box.

The customers in the store had stopped to watch, and though Percy knew that this was probably going to be very PDA, or an embarrassing rejection, it was too late to back down now. Annabeth had cupped her hands over her mouth, a tear slipping down her face. _Too late to go back now, _Percy reminded himself.

He got down on one knee, right in the middle of Williams A. Burton jewelers, and opened the box with a soft _clop. _Percy was done dealing with the saleswoman. It was time to let him judge whether or not he had really sucky taste. He took a deep breath, willing his thrumming heart to slow down. His hands trembled slightly.

"Annabeth Brooklyn Chase, will you marry me?" He hardly had time to get the words out before Annabeth interrupted him, her voice full of delight.

"_Yes!_" she cried, and Percy stood up, just in time for her to throw her arms around her. "_Oh my gods, Percy, yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes!"_ She sobbed into his shirt, tears of joy, and Percy felt himself relaxing a bit.

"Oh, thank gods," he murmured. Annabeth threw back her hair, shaking her head with a rueful smile on her face, tears streaking down her cheeks.

"I thought you'd never ask," she said.

* * *

**A/N: There it is! My proposal one-shot. I hope that you all liked it.**

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again!**


	20. The Letter

**Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Annabeth finds a letter addressed to her by a certain somebody one day. (Set in-between ****_The Last Olympian _****and ****_The Lost Hero.)_**

* * *

The Letter

**"****Percy!" I called.**

I tapped my foot impatiently on the porch of the Poseidon cabin. My patience was beginning to wear thin. We were set to go onto the chariot racing track in about ten minutes, and if he was fifteen minutes late one more time, I was going to inflict some serious damage on him. My lips pressed firmly together. If he wasn't going to answer, then I was going to have to drag him out of the cabin.

Walking into the Poseidon cabin with my arms crossed, I nearly did a double-take at the smell. I knew that boys smelled bad- I lived with two grade-school maniacs seventy-five percent of the year- but this was insanity. I tripped on a pile of clothing near the door. This was just pathetic. It was no wonder that Drew always found something to be desired in the state of his cabin.

I picked things up unconsciously, wadding clothes into the palm of my hand. It wouldn't hurt to give him a head start on picking up. Glancing at a cupboard, I snorted. Look. A place where he could _put _things, as opposed to the floor. Just as I picked up one of the sweatshirts, something inside of it crackled.

I rolled my eyes. Great. Just what I needed: a boyfriend whose cabin smelled like the pegasi stables, looked like a horde of stampeding wildebeests had just come trampling through it, and, of course, a boyfriend with a candy addiction. I yanked the source of the crackling noise out of the pocket, expecting a Dum-Dum wrapper, and then froze when I saw what I had found.

It was an envelope. A squished envelope, but an envelope, nevertheless, with the word _Annabeth _printed on it in his messy handwriting. A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it back down with some difficulty. Why would Percy have an envelope with my name on it? The mere thought sent my head spinning. With shaking hands, I sent a furtive glance over my shoulder. Though I knew that I shouldn't read it, I figured it couldn't hurt. It was addressed to me, after all.

With legs that felt like quivering Jell-O, I sat down on his bed, ignoring the rumpled sheets and smell of boy that came wafting up. Carefully, I opened the envelope, wondering what I would find. Inside, was a letter, filled from top to bottom with Percy's big, messy handwriting, addressed to me. Though I knew that shouldn't read it- he would have given it to me, if it was intended that I read it- I did anyway. There was no date on the paper; it just got straight to the point.

_Dear Annabeth,_

_It kind of kills me to write this letter- and not just because this is the third copy, with all of my dyslexia issues. It kills me to write this letter because if you're reading it, then it means that I'm dead. Which, you know, sucks, for future me and all that. _

My throat caught. Was this what I thought it was? A letter addressed to me in the event of Percy's death? Tears welled in my eyes. No turning back now, at any rate. I was too far into this. With a sense of foreboding, I kept on reading.

_As much as it does suck for future me, I figured that I had better write this letter anyway. You're one of my best friends, and there's kind of a lot that I'm too much of a chicken to say to you in person. So, here goes. It's actually hard for me to write this down in words. Wow. Okay. No, really, I'm going to write it now._

A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. Ah, my eloquent Seaweed Brain. Wherever did he get the elegance in which to write this letter? A nervous bubble of laughter forced itself out of my throat.

_See, the thing is, I kind of hated you at first. I mean, you had to point out the fact that I drooled in my sleep (which I do, but dogs do too, to be fair). Then there was the fact that you were taller and _way _better with a blade then I thought that I'd ever be. That had some serious ego-damaging points, let me tell you._

A tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away hastily. It was just a letter, I reminded myself. Nothing to cry about it, as long as I kept my wits about me. There would be something to cry about if I let the hysteria and the thought of Percy being dead win.

_Then, on that truck ride to Vegas, you kind of opened up. You offered a little bit of yourself. I guess that was probably when I stopped hating you. Once, back when I was twelve, I made some comment about you, and Grover said something like, "Don't be so hard on her, Percy. Annabeth's had a tough life." I didn't really know what he meant until then. _

My hands stilled. I made no effort to control my tears. Had Grover really said that about me? My eyes closed, and, as I opened them, I resolved to finish this letter, painful as it might be to read it. This would teach me not to go looking for candy wrappers, though.

_The thing is, I'm fifteen now. I don't know what I'm going to feel like in a year, or whether I'm going to be alive or dead. What I do know is that it'd be pointless to tell you that you're my friend. You already know that (or you really should, at least). Before I die, I just wanted you to know that, whatever feelings you have for me, you're certainly not just a friend for me. _

_If I ever die, I hope that you got the letter. It's just something I want you to know, and I'm not sure if I'll ever get the chance to tell you I love you. At least I've got a little bit of insurance this way. _

_-Percy_

A sob burst out of my throat. I hugged my knees, tears streaming down my face. Control yourself, Annabeth, I told myself, though it didn't really work. At that moment, I didn't really care that I was probably going to be late for chariot races.

"Annabeth?"

I turned around, knowing the voice. Wiping tears from my face, I forced a smile, standing up to face him. "Oh, hey, Percy," I said, though my voice broke a little. "Your cabin's a mess, by the way. And it smells." _Wow, _I thought sarcastically. _Great job, Annabeth. You tell him. _

Percy studied me, his green eyes unnerving. His eyes dropped to the piece of paper that I was clenching in my hands. "Oh, shit," he said, his eyes apologetic. "I really meant to throw that piece of crap away, I swear, Annabeth…"

He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence. I walked over to him, wrapping my arms firmly around him. Closing my eyes, I breathed in the scent of him- chocolate-chip cookies and sea brine, two things that should have been impossible together, but weren't, somehow. "Don't ever leave me," I said, holding him tighter.

Percy sighed, hugging me. "I'll never leave you, Annabeth. I promise."

_I promise._

If there was one lesson that I had learned, it was not to make promises that you couldn't keep. I was foolish to let him promise that to me, and part of that brief conversation might have been what made the following months so hard to bear. I often read that letter over and over again- I never threw it away. It was nice to know that he loved me, even in the darkest days.

The letter was more of a promise than anything else.

It was a promise that Percy would always keep.

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**A/N: This is today's chapter. I hope that you all enjoyed it. Also- review or PM me if you got the tiny _Merlin _reference!**

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again!**

**For tomorrow's chapter, I will be using anon's (guest) prompt.**


	21. Eavesdropping

**Disclaimer: Don't own.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: anon (guest)**

**Synopsis: Hazel does a little Percabeth eavesdropping aboard the _Argo II..._**

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Eavesdropping

**Hazel wasn't sure what to think of Annabeth.**

All throughout her, Frank, and Percy's quest, that girl had been the one thing that Percy had remembered. To be completely honest, Hazel hadn't known what she was expecting. Annabeth had been put at such high standards that it was the kind of thing that you just needed to _see _with your own two eyes to judge. Unfortunately, Annabeth was making that a little difficult. For the life of her, Hazel just couldn't get a concise read on the warrior, no matter how many times she spied and tried aboard the _Argo II._

There were moments when Annabeth seemed nice and funny, and moments when she seemed genuinely frightening. The only real conclusion Hazel had come across was that Annabeth vaguely reminded her of Reyna: they both had that calm, authoritative demeanor that both immediately put them in charge. Other than that, Hazel just wasn't sure what to think of the girl.

The only real thing that Hazel thought about Annabeth was this: she had absolutely _no _idea how she and Percy stood each other. Hazel believed in the whole 'opposites attract' theory, but Percy and Annabeth were severely testing the limits. They were polar opposites. Annabeth had the intelligent, smart, calculative, dangerous girl look, and as for Percy… well, Hazel admitted that she had overestimated him, but he was still a little idiotic sometimes. They just seemed like the possibility of them being romantically involved was far slighter than the possibility of them being enemies.

Hazel was absorbed in these thoughts as she walked around the _Argo II, _her bare feet padding on the wood. She held an apple in her hand and was absentmindedly munching on it in her pajamas. Her thoughts were completely and totally absorbed when voices wafted over to her.

She thought back to something that her mother had always said to her: _"Hazel, don't eavesdrop. You're never going to like what you hear- very often, it might be about you, and it might not be positive, either. If you do eavesdrop, you'll regret it, Hazel Levesque." _Hazel remembered that clearly: her mother's earnest eyes boring into hers. She had never truly resented her mother, but when she said things like that, Hazel had been irritated. Of course, the advice was probably for the best, but still.

Setting her jaw, Hazel decided that she _would _eavesdrop. She leaned in towards the sound of the voices, wondering if she really was going to regret this. Somehow, she sort of doubted it. There were secrets aboard the _Argo II, _but she was sure that she knew all of them… well…

Maybe she was a little stupid.

Rolling her eyes, she strained her ears for the sound of voices, and was startled to discover that they were a male and female's voice. A pit of guilt settled into her stomach, and she suddenly felt nauseous. Hazel shouldn't be eavesdropping on that- it was probably a pretty private admission. When she identified the female as Annabeth and the male as Percy, however, her interest was piqued. This was the chance to figure out Annabeth once and for all.

"-you are _such _a complete and utter idiot," came Annabeth's voice. Hazel raised her eyebrows. Though it was kind of true, no one had actually called Percy that to his face. If Hazel was going to be honest, Percy was kind of frightening, too.

"And you love me for it," Percy said cheekily. There was the sound of an audible smack, and Percy's indignant, _"Ow! Shit!" _Hazel grinned. In the brief time that she had known Percy, she had known him to have to worst mouth of anyone that she had met.

"Watch your mouth, Perseus Jackson, before I wash it out with soap," Annabeth said sternly. Hazel tilted her head. So was _this _the relationship that they had- a stern relationship in which Annabeth was the alpha dog, and Percy submitted to her? Hazel waved the thought away as soon as it came to her. Annabeth was definitely an alpha dog, but so was Percy, in all fairness.

"Hmm," Percy said quietly. Annabeth shrieked, and he snickered. "How about this? I'll strike you a deal. How about I wash out my mouth with _your _profanity-free pair of extremely available lips instead of soap? Sound like a good idea?"

"Who ever said my lips were available?" Annabeth asked, teasing him. Hazel thought that she was beginning to understand just how their relationship worked: a playful, never-ending banter. It was a bit tiring for Hazel, but she was beginning to see just how Percy loved her as much as he did.

There was the sound of kissing. "I did, until I made them unavailable," Percy told her quietly. The sound of more kissing followed, and Hazel stepped away. _That's enough sugar for you, Hazel Levesque. You don't eavesdrop on people kissing. _Still, she felt color rise to her cheeks. She couldn't' believe how much the world had changed since the 1940s. She waved a hand in front of her face, walking away.

Her mind was whirling. That was why Annabeth loved Percy, then. They had clearly been friends for a while, but he also made her laugh- that explained a lot. It also didn't help that he was somewhat good-looking. As for Percy loving Annabeth, Hazel was no longer in any doubt: the boy adored Annabeth. She made him laugh, too, and was easy to tease, which Hazel heavily suspected that Percy loved. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

They were two teenagers, completely and totally in love. As Hazel walked away quietly, she spotted Frank leaning against the edge of the _Argo II. _She smiled. Someday, she hoped that she and Frank could be as easy as Percy and Annabeth. It would take practice, of course, and genuine love, but Hazel had one of those things down-pat. As for the practice thing…

Hazel figured that she'd start now.

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**A/N: Whoop whoop! Still daily, on five hours of sleep, exhausted, and in dire need of coffee! Anyway, thanks for the reviews. I also received a constructive criticism remark from 'Sorry' (guest), which, if that guest is reading this, I just want to say: thank you. I really appreciate the critique, and I'll try to keep it in mind best as I can (I am only a thirteen year-old girl, and my knowledge of love is pretty much just middle school crushes). Anyone else who has pointers about how I can improve my writing, please please please let me know! That's why I publish things on FanFiction: so that I can improve my writing.**

**Off to get some coffee and get myself out of bed... hope you all enjoyed the chapter!**

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again!**


	22. Moxie

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson.**

**Rating: T (warning: swearing more intense in this chapter)**

**Prompt: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: The night after returning from Tartarus, Annabeth meets an unexpected visitor up on the deck of the ****_Argo II..._**

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Moxie

**Time seemed to stop in hell.**

There didn't seem to be any measure of days, nights, hours, minutes, or seconds; it was just when you got too exhausted to sleep. There was no relent of the harsh sun to the cool breeze of night, or the twinkling solace of the stars up in the inky black sky. There wasn't even time, really; just a constant tick-tock of the time before your life ran out and you finally died.

I knew this firsthand. When people said the phrase 'been to hell and back', it was a literal term for me. I had actually experienced what it was like to be in the Underworld, multiple times, but the most recent one was by far the worst. There was no word that described it better than the word 'Tartarus' itself. There was no measure of how terrible and terrifying it was in that pit, just as there was no measure of time.

Unfortunately, I had only been back from Tartarus for about twelve hours. Right about now, I was exhausted, I was drained, and I was near tears. I hated to cry; it was equal parts irritation, vanity, and pride. Crying seemed to signify that you were at the very edge of your rope. For me, it was true, but I didn't want to show it. In fact, it was more true than I hoped I let on. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the burning heat. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the monster Arachne scuttling towards me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the person I loved most in the world drowning in a sea of desperation in my arms.

Every time I closed my eyes, it didn't seem to matter that I was still walking the earth. Every time I closed my eyes, I was right back in hell. It was my own version of Tartarus right back on the world, no matter where I was standing, or what world I was in. The mind controlled you: it gave you sorrow, love, happiness, and pain beyond anything you would ever know.

I pressed my face into my pillow in my bedroom on the _Argo II_. For the first time in what seemed like years, the sky outside was dark. It was nighttime, and I should have been sleeping. I just wasn't ready to go back to Tartarus just yet. I sat up in my bed, standing up and grabbing a sweater from where it hung on the post of my bed. There was no point in fighting insomnia only to return to the nightmares that doubtless awaited me when I returned. Quietly, I slipped out my door, my bare feet padding on the deck floor as I went up top. Leo was probably at the helm, but I didn't trust him to be conscious. He had the tendency to space out- often.

When I reached the upper deck, I spotted a pensive Leo at the helm, looking far off into space. I walked in the other direction. There were times in life when you just needed a bit of space, just to think. I walked over to the back of the ship and gazed out at the horizon. We floated over land and hills, tiny little dots counting for trees and sheep below. A crescent moon glowed down on the village. I willed it to remind myself that I was back from Tartarus. I wasn't in the Underworld anymore; I was in the place of the living.

"Oh, honey, just let it go." I blinked up and nearly did a double-take. A woman that looked like a nightclub singer from World War II was standing in front of me, in a skanky, low-cut, sparkly blue evening gown with a rip that went all the way up her leg, completely exposing her shapely thigh. It was so tight that it was like a second skin. Goosebumps arose on my arms- a dress that constricting would make me go insane. A white feather boa was slung around her thin arms, and a rhinestone choker was at her neck. She turned her face, revealing a classy blonde bob that framed her beautiful face perfectly. A seductive smile curled at her red, rouged lips. A cigarette dangled from her fingertips, impossibly elegant. She shifted in her sky-high stiletto heels. Despite her kind demeanor, the woman set my teeth on edge. I knew exactly who she was.

"Aphrodite," I gritted out. "How… pleasant to see you." My eyes fell to the cigarette in her fingers. She had yet to take an actual drag, and I suspected that it was just for decoration to complete her nightclub outfit.

Aphrodite let back her head and laughed as if I'd said the funniest thing in the world. "Yes, it's me. What gave it away?" She looked down at her sparkly getup conspicuously. "Oh, no. Was it the cig? See, I asked a designer that back in the forties, and she shook her head. The designer said she gave the costume 'moxie'. Good word, isn't it? Moxie."

"What are you doing here?" I snapped. I was at the very end of my rope. If Aphrodite wanted to banish me to the Fields of Punishment, fine. There wasn't any more torture I could take tonight. The goddess of love and infernal, incessant torture wasn't helping at the moment.

She clucked her tongue. "Tsk, tsk, Annabeth, honey. That's no way to talk to the goddess of love, now is it? Don't you know what I could make your love life like if you don't talk nice? Find that inner moxie. Bring it out, darling." She smirked.

That was right about when I lost it. I had been to hell and back. I wasn't about to sit here and talk nice to the goddess of love. She had no right to talk to me like that. It was times like this that I sometimes believed that gods needed to find a place a few notches lower than their current standing. The thought scared me, but it was there.

"What you're going to do to _my _love life?" I shouted. I slammed my hand down on the dock railing. "You know what, Aphrodite? I'm about two seconds from telling you to go eff yourself. You wanna know why?" My eyes burned. "I brought my effing boyfriend down into Tartarus with me. I pulled him through effing hell." My voice was shaking. "I brought the person I love most in the world right through hell. I've seen hell, and you know what? I'm not very scared right now, and I'm not in a forgiving mood. I survived Tartarus, and I might be riding to my death. I don't know. But maybe instead of causing wars, wreaking havoc, and being a bitch, you should go find a use for yourself. You should stop interfering with people's love lives. I'm cynical. Even before I went through hell, I had seen some pretty horrific things. All that cynicism made me _drag Percy through hell with me. _And that _sucks, _for him and me. So for now? Leave me the hell alone. Leave me the _hell _alone."

The words seemed to hang on the silence. I was furious, but I didn't want to take them back. The thing was, the only thing that had gotten me through Tartarus was Percy. He was the reason that I was here right now, but I had dragged him down with me. I was selfish. It was my foot that dragged me into that pit. I closed my eyes, not caring where it took me. When I opened them, the expression I saw on Aphrodite's face was not the one that I had expected.

The goddess of love tilted her head, looking for all the world like a cocker spaniel. "Is that really what you think, Annabeth?" She stubbed her cigarette out on the wooden railing, flicking the butt out back onto the ground. Aphrodite shook her head in wonderment. "You know, for one so smart, you're really very daft, aren't you? Annabeth, dear. You didn't drag Percy down." She smiled at me kindly. "Percy wanted to go with you. He was done losing you. He didn't care if he died: that boy would go to hell and back for you. I think he proved that. I admit, we've had our differences, but the boy's got moxie."

There it was again. That word. _Moxie. _I set it aside, because the weight of Aphrodite's words had just knocked the wind out of me. I wanted to believe what she said _so _badly. I loved Percy to death. I loved him more than anything else. I would die for him. My lower lip trembled. There were so many things that I could have said in response to her statement, but the only thing that came out was, "Really?"

"Really, honey. Honestly. Wake up, smell the coffee, and see the blatantly obvious." Aphrodite rolled her eyes, unbeknownst to the weight these words were having on me. The goddess's ever-changing eyes bored into mine. "You got moxie, Annabeth Chase." Another cigarette appeared in her fingers, already lit. Smoke drifted up from it. "Do you know what that word means? Moxie?"

In a daze, I shook my head. "Uh… no." I was still in shock. Percy had wanted to be down in Tartarus with me. He wanted to be with me. Right then, I wanted to go and hug him. I looked up at Aphrodite, not really paying attention. Her words came at me dimly.

"Moxie… it's not a word that you can define, Annabeth, hun. It's a word that means… everything. It means good and special and talented all at the same time. It means a force of character. Determination. There are seven billion of you humans on this planet, and hundreds of demigods. Moxie is what separates you from the rest." Aphrodite looked down at me sternly, and I found myself contemplating her words. "Now," she said in a dignified matter, "as for this sleep."

"What do you mean? I'm not sleeping," I mumbled, still shocked by all of her knowledge revelations.

"Exactly. People need their beauty sleep, especially you, honey," Aphrodite said. I was too tired to even be offended. She waved a hand in front of my face, and I smelled something sickly sweet wafting up from to my nose. My knees gave out, and I collapsed to the floor.

The last thing I saw before my world went black was Aphrodite whispering, "_Moxie_" in my ear. When I closed my eyes, however, there was no hell to greet me. It was just the world and souls of the living, and they all murmured for me to find my moxie.

What I didn't realize at the time was that my moxie was already found. Everyone has a moxie that they don't even know about. It's when you choose to show it that you can truly say that you have moxie.

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**A/N: Thus ends today's chapter! Whoop whoop! I'm sorry for any technical incorrectness in the describing of Tartarus. If I got anything wrong, please let me know and I'll correct it. **

**Thanks for all the reviews! Please review again- let me know what you thought! Prompts are welcomed!**


	23. Almost

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN PERCY JACKSON.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Guest**

**Synopsis: Percy takes Annabeth to a library...**

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Almost

**Perseus Jackson was many things.**

He was a reader, a lover, a fighter, and, above all, a friend. He was brave, loyal, and kind. In fact, he was almost entirely certain that he had plenty of good qualities. Why his girlfriend was bent on emphasizing on his weak points, he had yet to rationalize.

As far as he saw it, books were stupid. You could get the same story in movies. Whenever he brought this up with Annabeth, though, the point that movie theaters were better than libraries, he got the feeling that he was on a gangplank on a pirate ship in the middle of the Caribbean. He really, _really _didn't want to anger Captain Barbosa.

That being said, he didn't peg himself as the guy who would do absolutely everything his girl asked. Sure, Annabeth Chase was certainly demanding. In fact, he went so far to say that she was irritating- which, in a lot of cases, was kind of true. When he had first met her, he thought she was the devil.

Percy certainly didn't think that he would end up where he was now, or feel so utterly sick inside. In fact, his head was spinning from the sheer sight of it all. He didn't even have the sense of mind to yell at Annabeth for spoiling a nice surprise.

A library. Five nice years of being together, and where does his demon girlfriend take him? A library. And not just any library, either, one of those big ones where just the sight of the spines makes your stomach turn. Percy Jackson didn't like libraries. In fact, he thought that they were really stupid. That was why, at that present moment, he was not infected, not even remotely, in fact, by Annabeth's 'contagious' fevor.

"Oh my gods, Percy!" his girlfriend said, her gray eyes wide. "This is amazing! How can you not like this?" She said it as if there was no very obvious reason that people couldn't like it. Percy, on the other hand, was feeling very sure that it wasn't healthy to like this place. In fact, he had a new nickname for it. The Fields of Punishment. If he ever screwed up really badly in his hero life and died before he got a chance to fix it, the gods were going to send him here: the New York Public Library. Oh, they would have their laughs- especially Athena. He never liked her, though Hera would always have her place as Satan in his heart.

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe because I'm normal? And I really, really, really don't like books?" He was fairly certain that his face was turning green- and not the sort of euphemism for getting sick green, either. It was the sort of green that cartoons would boggle their eyes at.

"Percy," Annabeth said, her eyes pleading. At that moment, he almost gave in. She looked like a little puppy dog when she did that, her eyes big and her bottom lip quivering. Fortunately, ten years knowing Annabeth Chase gave him a very strong resistance, which was much needed at this point, seeing her very low-cut tank top.

He scowled. "I don't get it. What's the appeal?" His head was spinning from the words floating off of the spines of the books. It just wasn't fair to sit there and watch this whole thing unfold. Percy honestly thought he was going to bark on his girlfriend's pumps.

"It's beautiful," Annabeth said, her eyes shining. "Percy- our whole lives are a story. Every living second, every moment, is a story. Hell, somebody could make a book off of us and make a whole lot of money. But these books? This is a chance to be someone else. This is the chance to get to be the unexpected hero all over again. You get to _be _somebody else. It's like that one blue shape-changing girl in _X-Men. _She sheds a new skin as her mutation. All we get to do is merge into the pages. Into the lines. We get a new reality, where people don't die all that often. Do you understand what I'm saying, Percy?"

Actually, Percy didn't get most of what she was saying. He was too delirious from being in the library to really comprehend any of it. But with the way that she was looking at him, biting her lip, he figured that it wouldn't hurt him to give her a shot. Annabeth deserved this one thing. The gods knew that he owed her enough favors.

He forced a strained smile. "Yeah. I do. Totally."

Annabeth grinned, grabbing his wrist and pulling him into the maze of impending doom. Percy groaned, not so inwardly.

He was doing this for Annabeth. And right then, seeing the smile on her face- it made it all almost worth it.

Almost.

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**A/N: I know, not my best work. I finished this one and published it right before twelve, though, to keep me daily (AW YUS). Still, though the writing isn't my best, I hoped that you all enjoyed it.**

**Thanks for the reviews! Please review again!**


	24. Irony

**Disclaimer: I. Don't. Own.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt: Piper has a talk with Annabeth and things don't go so well...**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

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Irony

**Piper hated irony.**

It was a genuine feeling. She really, really hated irony, especially that of cruel irony. Piper hated irony because that was what her world seemed to be made of these days. Her dinner was a steaming plate full of a heaping of irony and a side dish of cruel. She wasn't sure if her metaphor made sense quite yet, but she liked how it sounded anyway.

There were many examples of how irony was so cruel in her life, of course, but the one that really stuck to her was this: Piper was the daughter of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and Piper's love life sucked. It really just wasn't fair, when you thought about it. If she got the bad luck of having Aphrodite as a mother, fine. She was used to bad luck. If Piper _finally _got lucky with finding the boy of her dreams, Jason, then that was amazing. But if she had to suffer Aphrodite, then her crap mother should at least ensure a good relationship, right? That was only fair.

Unfortunately, Piper was fast finding out that fairness wasn't exactly in the Olympians' vocabulary. They preferred words like 'horrific', 'bloody', 'death', and, of course, much to her chagrin, 'cruel irony'. Just the thought of the pompous gods on their thrones made Piper want to bang her head into a wall. Multiple times.

Piper really didn't have the best love life with Jason, she had to admit. After all, a relationship is never good when it's based on lies, (unless you're in a movie theater, watching a chick-flick. In that case, it's the only love relationship you ever find, and it's _always _based on lies) and Piper and Jason's record wasn't exactly squeaky clean, thanks to Hera.

One thing that always made Piper feel better- however childish, stupid, and, most of all, mean it always seemed to be- was the state of other people's love lives in camp. It seemed that everywhere you looked, there were disasters, and questioning could be deadly. A party at Camp Half-Blood was like walking into a minefield. It was never a good idea if you wanted to keep your sanity. Piper remembered one event in particular that had scarred her forever. Obviously, Aphrodite had been busy with her sadistic ways.

The thing about Camp Half-Blood was that there weren't any actual parties. Chiron, the camp instructor, would never allow it. He would put his foot- er, hoof- down whenever somebody even suggested it. Therefore, the types of 'parties' you saw were one of three things: an after a Capture-The-Flag game get-together, what some people called a birthday party, or Fourth of July. Three things; that was it. This particular party had been an after Capture-the-Flag get-together, which Piper now fitly dubbed in her mind 'The Time I Was an Idiot and Screwed Up Everything'.

The party hadn't exactly been fun from the start. In fact, it had been far from it. Piper had tried to make the best of it, however, directly avoiding Jason's piercing gaze and worming her way through the crowd over to Annabeth, who was sitting on a hill, looking out into the distance with a melancholy look in her eye. Piper knew- she _knew_- that she should leave her be. Annabeth was still in the process of mourning Percy's disappearance, and, to be frank, the possibility of his death. Hera wasn't exactly the most careful goddess on Olympus. Piper didn't listen to her internal honing radar that told her to turn her ass around and walk in the other direction. This was one of the nights that she chose to be stupid.

Piper walked over to Annabeth, plopping next to her in the ankle-high grass. "I brought you some punch," she said quietly, nudging the blonde's arm with a red Solo cup. "This is one batch that I think the Stoll brothers of doom haven't touched, either, so I think we should be good." She tried for a smile, but Annabeth just took her drink with a barely audible "Thanks".

Annabeth stared out at nothing in particular, absorbing the awkward silence. "Piper," she said, "do you- d'you think that Percy's alive?" Her eyes were open and honest, and they pleaded for an answer.

Piper figured now that the moment Annabeth asked that question was when she should've run for the hills. As hopeless as her relationship with Jason always seemed to be, she wasn't lying in her cabin at night, reminiscing through old memories of him and wondering whether or not he was even alive, or whether or not she would get a chance to tell him 'I love you' again. As bad as her and Jason's relationship was, it would never get as bad as Annabeth and Percy's.

It almost seemed like the ghost of Percy was haunting Camp Half-Blood sometimes. He had been there since he was twelve years old, and though it wasn't as impressive as Annabeth's almost-decade, he seemed to be the unanimous hero of the camp. Everywhere she turned, she heard someone talking about 'the time Percy did this', or the time 'Jackson did that', or something about the famous Percy Jackson. It was hard on _her _to have him missing, and she didn't even know the guy. All she heard was myths about him.

Piper should have given Annabeth a fake answer. She should have said 'Yes. Don't worry, Annabeth. We're going to find him. Everything's going to be fine.' But at the moment, that wasn't even something that Piper believed. How could she, after all? How could she possibly believe something so ridiculous? In the few months that Piper had discovered her heritage, she had seen things that she wanted purged from her brain permanently, though she knew that wasn't really an option. In her heart, Piper didn't believe Percy was alive. Not for a second. But Annabeth was her friend, so Piper did a sucky job at lying.

"To be honest?" Piper asked quietly. Annabeth nodded earnestly, her blonde curls bobbing up and down with the movement of her head. Piper exhaled slowly. "I don't know. I don't know if he reached the Roman camp, or whether or not he's made friends or enemies. From what I've heard from Jason, he might still be at the Wolf House. He might be trekking west to the Roman camp. I'm just not sure. I'm really sorry."

Piper should have kept her mouth shut. It was May. It was a beautiful night, the sun was just setting on the horizon, people were talking to each other with good conversation, and there was really no reason whatsoever to ruin the party. Yet, what did Piper do?

You guessed it: she ruined the party.

"I knew it," Annabeth said. "You don't think he's alive, do you? You don't even think that we're going to make it to save him. You just think that we're going to make it to the Roman camp." She glared at Piper. It was something that was totally unnecessary, but, Piper had to be fair: Piper had been being an ass. Annabeth needed lies right now, and _convincing _ones that didn't set even more doubts into the mind.

What followed was one of the worst fights that the friends had ever had. It had gone from speaking to each other sternly to yelling to shouting to screaming until finally, Jason broke the two of them up. Piper would never forget the look in his eye- the look that he was talking to two little, insignificant kids.

"_What _has gotten into you two?" he shouted over the din of our conversation. We both stopped, noticing Jason's torso in-between us. "What is going on? Annabeth, you're one of the most level-headed people I know. What has gotten into you?"

That was the barb that stuck the most. Jason hadn't said a word about what he expected from Piper. Not a word. He had pretty much ignored her entirely, actually, which was far worse than yelling at her. Piper wished that she had gotten the attention that Jason preceded to show her.

The thing about irony was that you never really saw it until you tried to look for it. Now, months later and suffering from insomnia aboard the _Argo II _and letting her thoughts wander, Piper saw the horrible irony in the worst fight that she had ever had with Annabeth Chase in her life: Piper had charmspeak. That entire conversation, she could have calmed Annabeth down. She could have made her see sense. She didn't have to ruin the party. In fact, she could have used her charmspeak to lie to Annabeth.

The thing about mythical heritage and mythical gifts, though, was that they often spurred unexpected irony. Piper was the daughter of the goddess of love, and yet her love life was a big heaping mess. Piper had charmspeak, and yet she had never actually used it to calm her friends down.

Piper just hated the cruel irony of life.

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**A/N: I know, I know. Minimal Percabeth. I just spent TWELVE HOURS IN A CAR ON A ROAD TRIP though. My head feels woozy.**

**Thanks for reviews! Please review again!**


	25. Simple Words

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU SO MUCH. I will continue doing the rest of the prompts that you suggested for the following days.)**

**Prompt synopsis: Frank and Annabeth have an interesting conversation on the ****_Argo II _****pre- their Chinese handcuffs talk...**

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Simple Words

**I looked out on the choppy sea.**

My hands were gripped on the railing tightly, my knuckles white. Below me, the choppy sea tossed and turned, white sea spray flying up to my face. The scent of sea brine was heavy in the air, permeating the mist around me. I looked up at the misty gray sky, the storm clouds on the horizon worrying me. I didn't like boats. I didn't care if I was descended from Poseidon; I just didn't like boats. Bile rose in my throat, and I forced it down, though the sour taste lingered in my mouth.

"Not a seafaring person, huh?" I looked up, a quizzical expression on my face. When I spotted Annabeth Chase, my shoulders relaxed, though only fractionally. I didn't know Annabeth all that well; just Percy. If Percy liked her, that was good enough for me, but I still didn't really know the enigma behind the blonde mop of hair. For all I knew, Annabeth could hate my guts.

I forced a smile. "Not really." I looked out over the ocean, half-hoping that Annabeth would just leave me alone. It wasn't that I didn't like her, it was more that I didn't _know _her. And I had gotten enough unwelcome surprises with Valdez and the blonde Superman they dubbed 'Jason' already. The _Argo II _didn't need any more people that burst into flames or shot lightning from their fingertips. I already knew Percy could make miniature hurricanes and explode glaciers into a thousand little tiny pieces. I didn't need to feel any more insignificant.

"You know, I'm not really a sea person either," Annabeth said. I gazed at her, unsure of where she was going with this. "Percy and I once went on a quest to the Sea of Monsters- aka the Bermuda Triangle- and he hijacked Blackbeard's ship, _The Queen Anne's Revenge. _I got so seasick, my face turned the color of guacamole. It's kind of funny, getting seasick and having the son of Poseidon as your boyfriend, I guess."

_Ah, _I thought. _So _that's _why Annabeth is having a conversation with me. She just wants to talk. _I thought all of this in a daze, still amazed by the fact that she and Percy had taken Blackbeard's ship. I spluttered. "Wait, what?"

"Kind of amazing, isn't it?" she said quietly. Suddenly, she turned to me, her gray eyes pleading. "Frank… why did Percy go on that quest with you?" All at once, I realized the real reason that Annabeth wanted to have a conversation with me. She wanted to know why Percy had risked his life and not stayed put.

"I… I don't know, actually," I said. "Percy's one of the bravest people I know." It seemed like the only thing that I could say, but when I thought about it, I realized that it was true. "He would risk his life to save us, and I have no doubt that he would die to save you in a heartbeat." I turned away, smiling briefly. "He loves you to death. The whole way up, he talked about you all the time. I could tell that he was thinking about you, too." I turned to her, finally meeting her gaze. "He loves you, Annabeth. He would go to Tartarus and back for you."

Annabeth stared at me for a moment, her eyes filling with tears. Then, so fast that I couldn't even see it, she threw her arms around me. I didn't know this girl- not really. All I knew was her boyfriend. And yet, in that moment, it didn't seem to matter. "Thank you," she whispered into my ears. She pulled back, tucking a curl behind her ear. "I'm… I'm scared, Frank. Percy values the lives of others above his own. I don't want to lose him."

I thought back to something Percy had once said about the daughter of Athena. "Didn't you… didn't you take a poison knife for Percy? Something about New York City and Saturn?" I furrowed my eyebrows at her. If she had sacrificed herself, then why shouldn't Percy?

"I- yeah. Yeah, I did. Kronos, though, not Saturn." Annabeth exhaled slowly. My mouth twitched. Even in a serious conversation like this, the smart girl couldn't resist correcting me. "The thing is… my family and I haven't always gotten along. I've got friends back at Camp Half-Blood, and all of you guys- well, almost," she said, her expression darkening for a moment. I could guess who she wasn't too fond of: Jason, her boyfriend's switching partner. Her face cleared, and she continued in a neutral tone. "But I love Percy more than anything. If he sacrificed himself for me… it wouldn't really be a sacrifice at all. I would rather take the knife then have him die to save me. Does that make sense?"

I stared at her for a long moment. It shocked me, to say the least, but underneath all of that, I wasn't all that surprised. Annabeth and Percy were like peanut butter and jelly. _Wow, Frank, _I thought to myself. _Great analogy. _Pushing the bad metaphor aside, I was ninety-nine point nine percent sure that Percy would say the same for Annabeth. In the next moment, I said the words that needed to be said. "He would do the same. Trust me, I was on a pretty scary quest with him. Percy would say the same exact thing."

Annabeth smiled, and in the next moment that followed, she said the words that needed to be said: "Thank you."

Words aren't always eloquent. In fact, they're sometimes fragments of sentences. But, every once in a while, the thoughts that you think in your head: compliments that you think against saying, praise that you think against giving, a simple 'thank you', 'you're welcome', or a use of the word 'love' can make a person's day.

In that moment, the 'He would do the same' and the 'Thank you' were all that we needed.

Annabeth Chase and I were no longer strangers: we were friends.

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**A/N: Still daily and on vacation! Though this chapter was (fun fact) written in an Apple store on a Mac computer that isn't exactly mine... oh, well. My sister broke her iPad, it's taking forever, and I got bored.**

**Thanks to Athenachild101 for her many prompts!**

**Thanks to all reviewers! Constructive criticism is welcome! Please review again- let me know what you thought!**


	26. Gravestones

**Disclaimer: I promise, I don't own Percy Jackson, and I never will.**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt: Me (surprisingly enough)**

**Prompt synopsis: a funeral hits the Jackson family hard...**

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Gravestones

**I stared at the slab of rock in front of me.**

It had been hours and hours since the funeral had ended. The people dressed in black satin and white button-up blouses had long since left, leaving only me to sit by the gravestone. The tears had long run out, much as I wanted them back. Somehow, crying made things feel better. It made you feel like you were contrite. It distracted you from the feeling of seeing a gravestone. It was a heavy feeling, like you were drained and unable to take another breath. The only feeling I had ever felt like it was when I held up the world with my wife.

"Percy." I turned around, seeing the only person who had bothered to stay for as long as I had. My wife stood behind me, her high black heels digging into the dirt. Her blonde hair whipped around her face, and black mascara streaked down her cheeks in stained rivulets. Annabeth. All at once, I caved in, and started to literally collapse. It was a good thing that I was already on the ground, though. The grass stains on my suit were never going to come out.

It seemed that Annabeth, like me, didn't have any scruples with her black satin pencil skirt and blouse. She knelt by me gingerly, putting her arms around me. Previously, I had thought that I was all done crying, but as she hugged me tightly, I figured that I was never really going to be quite done crying. Sobs emanated out of me, spurred by the lasting image of the coffin being lowered into the earth.

I looked at the gravestone, though the image was blurred with tears. The marble slab read SALLY M. JACKSON, 1975-2020. My mom. It was funny, really. I had always kind of taken her for granted- I mean, she was my mom. She was my blue chocolate-chip cookie baking mother. She wasn't going to leave me. My mom couldn't do that; it was impossible. There was no way on earth that she was ever going to leave, at least not until I did. With all of my quests, it seemed far more likely that I would die first. Of course, I had learned a long time ago that things didn't always turn out the way that you wanted them to.

"Oh, Percy," Annabeth said, her voice breaking. This was almost as hard on her as it was for me. I knew that she and my mom had been close. When I had gone missing, my mom had been the only person Annabeth knew who to turn to for help dealing with my disappearance. A sob hitched in my throat.

The weather even seemed to agree with us. Rain poured down around the grave in heavy, sleety bursts, pattering softly on the mushy ground. Water slipped off of the trees above the graveyard, splashing into puddles below. We both cried. We cried and cried and cried, because, really, though you might stop crying, it would never really be a true stop. The tears would never really run out.

My mother had only been forty-five when she died. It had been a car accident, and it had all happened so fast that it had been a blur. Hell, I hadn't even seen my little girl in what seemed like weeks, but was probably only about five days. The whole time, I had been passing through the world in a dull blur.

I thought back to a conversation that I had with Poseidon. The god had the gall to turn up at the funeral, looking contrite. He hadn't really been there for the service; I had spotted him at the edge of the graveyard, his hands tucked into a black suit, looking over the coffin being lowered in the ground. Quietly, I had murmured to Annabeth to stay there. At first, she had a quizzical expression on her face, until she spotted Poseidon watching us. Then she nodded, hugging me briefly. I figured that hug was the only thing that got me through the conversation that followed.

"Why did you do it?" Those were the first words that came out of my mouth. 'Why did you do it?' I was a distraught, confused, twenty-seven year old demigod, and I wanted to know why my father let my mother die.

Poseidon looked at me sadly. "Who lives and who dies are not up to me, Perseus. You, of all people, should know that." Somewhere, in my heart, I _did _know that. I knew that Poseidon couldn't tell the future, he wasn't the Fates, and he wasn't my uncle, Hades. There was nothing that he could have done.

Yet, I, as my distraught self, didn't want to hear that. "You're a god!" Tears burned in my eyes. "You should have done something. You shouldn't have just stood there in your little underwater palace and _watch her die_!" My teeth gritted together.

Poseidon glared at me, and thunder rumbled on the cloudy sky, though there wasn't any signs of rain at the time. It seemed that even my father had his limits. "Do not speak of what you do not know, Perseus." Those were his final words, for with that, he turned around and walked back towards the ocean, his figure fast receding. He didn't even use his godly powers to teleport to the ocean, much as I figured that he could. It wasn't his fault, and I regretted everything that I had ever said to him.

It seemed like I had acted like more of a dick than I really knew. My mother's death had impacted more onto the lives of those around me than I thought. My daughter was probably confused beyond all knowledge. And here was my wife, broken-down and sobbing as we held each other tightly. She had orchestrated the whole funeral. She had taken care of everything. And yet, here I was, crying when I should be thanking.

The thing about death was that you never really knew when it was going to happen. My mother was the first person in fifty years to be a lover of Poseidon, and she died as young as forty-five. I was a demigod, immensely powerful, and my death date could have been right there, right then. My wife was the smartest person that I knew, and even her wit and intelligence wasn't going to get her out of a crux one day.

These were the facts of life. One day, we were going to die, regardless of who we knew in the immortal world. We didn't really have any control over that. We just had control over what we did when the situations were upon us, and how we dealt with it. There was really no coping; it was just controlling it until you let it go.

Annabeth had done all the right things. She had held it together for me. She had found a babysitter for my daughter, bought the flight tickets up from Virginia to Montauk, where my mother was buried. She bought my suit, got a pencil skirt, orchestrated the funeral, and never shed a tear through the whole thing.

Nobody was invincible. We all had our breaking points. The trick is to hold it together for as long as you could, and then break apart into little pieces into the arms of somebody who understood and cared. That was the only way to get through something like this. It was a pure show of willpower.

I could summon hurricanes. I could control 70% of the earth's surface. I could slay a dozen different types of monsters in about twelve seconds. In fact, I was probably one of the most powerful demigods to ever walk the earth. It wasn't bragging; it was pure truth. What I was learning, though, was that the words 'strong' and 'powerful' weren't necessarily the same thing.

My wife didn't have any godly powers. Sure, her super-intelligence sometimes seemed like a holy power, but it wasn't, really. Yet, as we sat there, crying into each other, I was learning something fast. Despite my powers, my wife was thirty times as strong as I would ever be. Her breaking point had been a week after mine.

I figured that I owed her this one favor. I took a deep breath that seemed to rattle my chest, stilling my shaking hands and legs. Standing up slowly, I lifted my wife up. She looked thin as a toothpick, I reflected, having not eaten in a long, long while. Reflecting on my own appearance, I figured that I didn't look much better.

"Come on," I said quietly. Annabeth blinked up at me, her lashes fringed with tears. In that moment, she didn't need to say thank you. It was already said with her expression. Leaning on me, we both walked through the graveyard, away from my mother, away to my daughter. The world was for the living, not for the dead, though I figured that my mother would always be with me, in some way or another.

It wasn't, however, before I spoke the last words that I would ever say to my mother. They weren't anything special, they were just the honest trueness that I wished I could have said to my mother's face before she died.

"Goodbye, Mom. I-" My voice choked. "I love you."

I loved my mother. And I knew, with her heart, that she loved me back. My mother would reach Elysium- and one day, I would join her there. There would be no telling how soon or how long it would be, if my daughter or wife reached Elysium before me, or if I would go tomorrow, or a week from now, or a month from now. The world was for the living, not the dead.

I would see my mother again. She was just on the other side of the river now. For right now, I needed to be strong.

Annabeth's hand entwined in mine, we walked back to the car, our strength not in our willpower, but in each other.

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**A/N: So this is it. I'm in a rental home in a vacation destination right now, so updates might be a bit iffy. It all depends on where my family drags me XP. Unpacking right now... which I really, really don't want to do. Have a headache. Nauseous. Basically, I just want to complain after being seasick on a ferry, etc, etc. Probably shouldn't complain, but I am, because I feel sick on vacation.**

**Anyway... thanks for the reviews! I will do your review tomorrow, Athenachild101! Please review again!**


	27. Animosity, PART ONE: THE AMAZING PERCY J

**Disclaimer: Even after a LONG time without any updates, guess what? I still don't own Percy Jackson! **

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Leo hates Percy Jackson. Why? Well, that's a long story. A long story that will need to be resolved, in a long, long chat...**

**Time period: Set after end of _House of Hades_**

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Animosity

Part One: The Amazing Percy Jackson

**Leo Valdez hated Percy Jackson. **

He wasn't entirely sure where the animosity came from. He wasn't really sure that he wanted to know where the animosity came from, as a matter of fact. All Leo really knew was that he despised Percy Jackson, and though he had no intention of declaring his slight hatred, he knew that it wasn't going to disperse anytime soon. Though it wasn't the 'I-wish-you-were-never-born' hatred, it was still strong enough to wish that Leo had never even met the guy.

The more he thought about not meeting Percy Jackson, the happier he became. Though Leo hadn't known Percy Jackson all that long- it was just a couple of weeks, give or take a few days- it felt as if he had known him for months. It was hard not to, as Leo had lived in Camp Half-Blood for eight months. Even when Percy wasn't present at the camp, he haunted it like a ghost.

Just walking around the camp was like getting a fifteen-second lecture on his life. You could learn where he was born (New York City), what his favourite food was (blue chocolate-chip cookies), and what his favourite color was (that answer had come from a snappy Ares camper named Clarisse: 'Blue, obviously. Haven't you _seen _what he eats? Oh, wait. Sorry. You haven't. Never mind') just by asking any one person in the camp. It was like the guy had a living, walking, talking biography of about sixty demigods.

Leo wasn't going to lie. That part was pretty cool, and it made him a little green with envy. By the end of just strolling around camp, you had heard enough stories about Percy Jackson to make you want to throw him off of a bridge for having so many achievements.

At first, Leo had even thought that people were kidding with some of the stories that they told. When someone suggested that Percy Jackson had battled Ares and won, he had finally snapped. "Oh, come _on,_" he had said, thinking that it was an urban legend. "He didn't really do that, did he?" The group of demigods had stared at him, shaken their heads, and then walked off, conversing in low tones and shooting him looks.

After that discussion, Leo had gone to take a walk to cool off- literally, seeing as how his hands seemed to be engulfed with inextinguishable flames- and had ended up on some random hilltop. Camp Half-Blood could be peaceful at times, with the spring smell of fresh, wet mulch and a cool, nippy breeze. Eventually, the flames had smoldered out, and Leo had been enjoying a nice, quiet silence when someone sat next to him.

"Nice day, isn't it?" Leo had jumped, startled, and quit fidgeting with the little pinwheel that he had fashioned with tools in his belt. Next to him sat a gruff, sad-looking satyr with a mop of light brown, curly hair, a small pair of spiraling horns, and big brown eyes. Leo had just looked at him for a moment, wondering briefly where his wonderful silence had gone, and then replied.

"Uh… yeah," he said. "All days are nice in Camp Half-Blood, though." He started working the pinwheel again, wishing desperately that the satyr would just leave him alone. Instead, the half-goat hybrid brought out a set of wooden pipes.

"True," the satyr said. He stuck out his hand. "My name is Grover Underwood." Internally, Leo cursed the gods. Why on earth the world was so cruel as to make him undergo this sort of torture, he wasn't sure, but he certainly didn't appreciate it.

Leo sighed. "Leo Valdez," he said reluctantly, pumping Grover's hand. Leo furrowed his eyebrows as something in their conversation began to trigger a brainwave in his head. "Wait," he said slowly. "Grover Underwood… where have I heard that name before?"

Grover smiled thinly. "Probably alongside the name Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Luke Castellan, or Thalia Grace," he said dryly. "I tend to be associated with those sorts of people."

As soon as Grover spoke the words, Leo knew that was true. "You're the satyr who escorted Thalia, Luke, Annabeth, and Percy to Camp Half-Blood," he said without thinking. A momentary expression of pain flitted across Grover's features for a moment. Leo mentally cursed himself. _Wow, great job, Leo. Bringing up past failures in your first conversation. Well, good way to get back your silence, at least. _

"Yes, I am," Grover said. His attention became fixated on the pinwheel in Leo's hands. After what seemed like an eternity, he turned his gaze back up to meet Leo's eyes. "I heard you speaking earlier. About Percy."

Leo's cheeks colored. "Oh," he said. The word seemed very small at that moment.

Grover laughed. "It's fine. Trust me, Percy was- _is_ –one of my best friends. I can't quite believe that the battle happened, either. I'm still half-convinced that it was a dream. If not for Annabeth, I would completely convinced."

"Wait," Leo said, holding up a hand. "Are you saying that Jackson _actually _battled Ares? I thought that those people were just adoring groupies, like the rest of them." The words came out more bitter than he had intended, and Leo was a bit shocked by them.

"Yeah. He actually battled Ares. I'm not sure how he won, but he did." At Leo's incredulous look, Grover snickered. "Trust me, I know. I was there when the battle happened. Percy got fairly lucky. He slashed a deep cut in Ares' ankle, ending the fight."

Leo gaped at him. "How does Percy even get in these situations? It almost seems like he goes looking for trouble. He's insane." Leo was reminded of a daredevil show that one of his foster families had once dragged him to. He had watched in awe as big, burly men on motorcycles revved their engines through flaming hoops. That was how Percy seemed at the moment.

"Percy doesn't really go looking for trouble. Annabeth did, at first, after being cooped up in camp for five years." Grover's expression turned distant. "Percy does get himself into a couple of problems. He doesn't listen to directions and his head too much. He's the kind of person who likes to listen to their heart." He swallowed, hard. "Leo… did you ever hear the story about Percy being offered immortality?"

Leo snorted. "A few times, yeah."

"People tend to buff up that story," Grover said, ignoring Leo's derisive snort. "They make Percy some buff hero that has no other agenda than the great people of Earth." Grover laughed, though it sounded strained. "The truth about that story isn't some great tale about the perfect Percy Jackson. It's the story about how Percy Jackson loved Annabeth Chase. He loved her more than the thought of immortality, and, well…" Grover shrugged. "Clearly, you saw the result. Percy stayed with Annabeth. He listened to his heart, not his head."

Despite himself, Leo let out a low whistle. "No wonder Annabeth's got her bookworm panties in a twist." He furrowed his eyebrows. "Wait. Why are you telling me this?"

"I'm telling you this because, with Percy absent, people are looking for a figure to look up to. They can look up to Jason, but he's still potentially the enemy. Piper looks like a mental ward escapee half the time with her odd gimmicks and fashion sense. Annabeth is going out of her mind with worry. I'm trying to keep an eye on her, but she's gone a bit insane. And you… well…" Grover looked to be struggling for the right words to say. "You're a bit crazy. You don't always think things through."

"I try not to think. It interferes with being nuts."

Grover laughed- a real, genuine laugh. "Fair enough. My point is, Percy's not around to show people that he makes mistakes. He's not around to remind people that he's not nine feet tall; he's around six feet. He's not around to remind people that he's half-human. The godliness only goes so far." He set his jaw. "He's not as perfect as people make him out to be." Grover sent Leo a small smile. "Just think on that."

Now, two months after that conversation happened, Leo couldn't help thinking that Percy might just have been as perfect as people made him out to be. Sure, the guy had his moments- he wasn't the sharpest tool in the toolbox, that was certain- but he also had his moments of 'how-on-earth-is-he-doing-this-_what_'. Now that he had met the famous Percy Jackson, Leo wasn't initially sure what to think of him. He had seen pictures, and wasn't all that surprised by the godly looks and lopsided smile that spelled TROUBLE in capital letters and bright, flashing lights, but he was still a bit surprised by how he spoke, moved, and talked. After eight months of hearing nothing about Percy Jackson- despite Grover's reassurances that he wasn't perfect- Leo had kind of built him up to somehow be this egotistical jackass. It was kind of disappointing that he wasn't an egotistical jackass, to tell the truth.

When Leo met Percy, though, Leo found him to be… well, frightening, actually. It all started from the first moment that Percy had growled at him, _"Sorry?" _when Maniac Eidolon Leo had blown up New Rome. Percy had seemed genuinely frightening. It had almost been an instantaneous instinct to run for the hills, as fast as Leo's scrawny chicken legs would carry him.

As Leo got to know him, he began to warm up slowly. He couldn't say how fast the change occurred. All he could say was that the moment that Percy held on to Annabeth's hand like a lifesaver in a choppy sea, as opposed to, well, a body dragging him down into hell, Leo had felt remorse. It was his fault that they had fallen. Blame it on Arachne, or sticky webs, or bubble-wrap casts all you want, he had broken the fortune cookie. He sent them into Tartarus.

There was always that one moment in any person's hate relationship, though, that the hater realized just why he or she hated the other person so much. In Leo's case, it was the moment that he was transported into Ogygia. It was the moment that he heard about the amazing Percy Jackson, who had blown up a volcano and landed in Ogygia, meeting Calypso, only to desert her.

It was the moment that Percy chose her over Annabeth.

From the stories that Leo had heard, there had been time and time again where Percy had put Annabeth in front of other people's interests. Apparently, he had dived into a potentially hostile ocean patch with sirens shrieking at him. He had blown up a volcano to save other people, but took his time to make sure that Annabeth was out first. Percy went on a quest to save Annabeth, resulting in having five people on the quest: killing either a girl named Bianca, allegedly Nico di Angelo's sister, or a huntress named Zoë, who had been around since _Hercules's _time, just to be killed on a quest. There was, of course, the brushing off immortality. Leo could practically picture Percy saying, '_Oh, no. Immortality? How bothersome. But never fear! I shall still dance with my lady fair!'_

Well, maybe he didn't say those exact words. Leo liked to picture it happening like that anyway, though. And if Percy happened to be in a pink tutu, clasping his hands together dreamily while doing so… well, these things happened.

Then, of course, Percy had risked his life to save Annabeth. He could have been throwing the fate of the quest away- there was the world to think about, after all, and his powers of controlling 70% of the earth's surface did tend to come in handy occasionally- but never mind that. Never mind sinking to the bottom of the ocean and giving up the life of Grover, never mind what might happen to other people when he blew up a huge volcano, never mind the two dead girls, never mind immortality, never mind Calypso, for gods' sakes. There was _Annabeth _to think about.

Maybe Leo was a little bitter. Maybe Leo knew exactly why he hated Percy. Who was he kidding? There was no 'maybe' about it. He knew why he hated Percy. End of story.

Leo Valdez hated Percy Jackson because Percy had discarded Calypso. Percy discarded Calypso like a piece of unwanted trash. _Oh, look, a beautiful girl on an island paradise is hitting on me. How bothersome. I can't stop to look at you, or think about your feelings, Calypso. I have _Annabeth _to think about. _And, in Leo's book…

Well, that just wasn't acceptable.

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**A/N: Okay, I know. Strong Percy and Leo hate vibes going here. I'm trying to tell the story as Leo would tell it, though, from his point of view. I mean, the guy's in love with a girl who still loves the 'amazing' Percy Jackson, who dumped the girl. And, let's be honest, Percy didn't deal with it too well. 'Bye, see ya later, got a hot blonde to kiss again' doesn't really cut the dumping part. **

**Also, on the Percy talk at Camp Half-Blood... well, I reread ****_Mark of Athena _****recently for the seventy-five millionth time, and in Piper's dissing Percy chat time, I noticed that she had remarked on hearing a lot about Percy at camp. I kind of expanded on the idea here. Also... did anyone catch the Leo Valdez quote from later in the series?**

**I also tend to notice in the books that Percy does a lot for Annabeth. That's part of what makes them a great couple, but, at the same time, I mean, BOUNDARIES, Percy. Going to hell and back for Annabeth: that's sweet, yes. But risking the fate of the quest? A little questionable, to be completely honest. Feel free to share thoughts about any of my viewpoints: I enjoy a good debate.**

**ANYWAY... past the REALLY REALLY REALLY long author's note about the chapter...**

**Sorry that it was so long, and only Part One, but I wanted to give it a little back story. Stupid long one-shots. Ugh.**

**Sorry for not updating in a while, too. Life got crazy with vacation, upcoming school, auditions, and tryouts. Yugh, but summer's over, so updates will just be coming whenever I have overflowing imagination and my other stories just aren't cutting it. So, in other words, pretty irregularly. **

**Thank you to all previous reviewers! You guys are what keep my self-esteem up and words flowing, so thank you! I've kind of got a prompt overflow at the moment, so unless you've desperately got an idea and NEED to share it THIS VERY INSTANT (and I understand, trust me. We've all been there at one time or another) please hold off on the prompts for now. Thanks!**

**That being said...**

**Thoughts? Concerns? Debates about my VERY VERY biased thoughts? **

**Button's right down there ;)**


	28. Animosity, PART TWO: THE PALLET CLEANSER

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. Wish I did, but I don't. **

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101**

**Synopsis: Leo hates Percy Jackson- that much is obvious. The hate is branching out, though, and Leo might just need a little 'pallet cleanser'...**

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Animosity

Part Two: The Pallet Cleanser

**Leo Valdez hated Annabeth Chase. **

There wasn't really a concrete reason for his hatred for the tall, smart blonde. It was just a distaste, to be completely honest. She set his teeth on edge, and, to be frank, was a bit frightening. The first time that he had met Annabeth, with her stampeding toward him with that '_Why aren't you Percy Jackson gods above what the hell?!' _expression on her face, Leo had instinctively backed off. _Danger, Will Robinson, _he had thought. _Best not to tamper with that piece of machinery. She's wound up a bit too tight._

However, if Leo was completely honest with himself- which typically wasn't a good idea, seeing as how honesty led to brutal truth-telling hour- he knew exactly why he didn't like Annabeth. It didn't really have anything to do with how dangerous she was, or the scary glint in her eye that she had when she was mentally working out the best way to strategically kill someone. It didn't have anything to do with how freakishly well she threw a knife. It didn't have anything to do with Annabeth herself, as a matter of fact. The thought process went a bit deeper than that.

Leo hated Annabeth Chase because he hated Percy Jackson.

In a fair world, the two shouldn't have been connected. Just because they were both romantically involved didn't mean that they were both bad by default. Leo only hated Percy, if you wanted to look at it from a fair perspective. But, much as he tried to accept Annabeth, he couldn't. Leo didn't live in a fair world. He lived in an unfair world. That unfair world reflected on him. And if he didn't like the reflection that he saw staring back at him in the shop window… Well, it was the price that he paid.

The whole situation reminded Leo of a situation that he had once undergone. When Leo was ten, he had a foster mother named Dana. Leo had experienced much worse foster mothers than Dana, but even so, living with her had been painful. Dana had been born and raised on a Rottweiler breeding farm. She chain-smoked constantly, was a lonely spinster, and was looking for some company. Leo didn't know how she made the connection to foster parent, and, to be completely honest, he didn't really want to know. Dana didn't have a caring bone in her body. She was sinewy, with black, greasy hair, wrinkles, and a constant frown. She dressed in _military uniforms. _Leo didn't do conformity. He was way to psycho for that.

One day, he had received an email from his family. At the time, Leo's grandmother passed away, she had been too 'elderly' to take care of Leo. Abuela had been the only one to discard his Aunt Rosa's claims that Leo was a terrible human being. The day before Leo moved to his first foster home, he had packed a bag and planned to leave in the early hours of the morning. Abuela caught him, and demanded that he stay. _Tres dias, _she had told him. _Three days. Give it a chance and then see if you still want to leave. _That had been Leo's rule, from then on out.

The email had been from his Uncle José. Leo hadn't wanted to open the email at first, and when he saw what was written, he judged his uncle more than he should have. Leo blamed Abuela's coming death on José. It hadn't been fair- in Leo's heart, he knew that- but Leo had done it anyway.

After school, Leo had found a spot on the opposite end of the Rottweiler breeding farm, and had climbed a tree, to avoid getting bitten. That day, he wasn't in his right mind. He just sat there, watching the sun set on the horizon and listening to the dogs bark and growl underneath his perch. At about six o' clock, Dana came to find him to alert Leo that it was dinnertime.

She had stood underneath him, hands plopped on her waist, a cigarette dangling from her finger, and a grimace on her face. "What're you up there for?" she had barked up, crushing her cigarette under her boot like a bug. "It's dinnertime, boy."

"I'm not coming," Leo had told her crossly, not caring that he sounded petulant. He had crossed his arms, glaring down at her. Leo wasn't in the mood to be grateful for dinner, or even be hungry. He was too mad at his Uncle José. He was too mad at the world for letting his Abuela die.

Dana had rolled her eyes. "Yeah, ya are. Now get your skinny ass down here and eat some food. You're thin as a toothpick. One o' them boys at the school gon' give you a piece o' they minds one day. You just wait and see."

"I'm not coming," Leo repeated. He then made the mistake of saying, "You can't make me come. I won't do it." The last thing he should have been doing right about then was talking back and challenging his foster mother, but at that moment, Leo didn't really give a rat's.

"Oh, really?" Dana had taken a step forward. "Do I need to sic my dogs on you, Toothpick? I bet that Rocco would take a nice likin' to the taste o' your skin." She closed her eyes. "Mm-mm-mm. That's just what he looks forward to. Taste of Toothpick's real easy on the taste buds." She gave Leo a conspicuous wink.

Leo still didn't know whether or not Dana was serious. He thought that she probably was serious, as that woman had the heart of the Tin Man, but whether or not she was serious was irrelevant. He climbed down hastily, brushing the lichen that had rubbed off on his clothes. Leo gave Dana the evil eye. "I came down here 'cuz I wanted to," he told her, turning up his nose.

"Mm-hm," Dana had said. She began walking forward to the house, and Leo had tripped to keep up with her long stride. "Now, why dontcha tell me what this is really about." At Leo's bewildered glance, she elaborated. "Oh, c'mon, boy. I knows you don't hide up in trees 'cuz it's done _comfortable._"

Leo had honestly thought about just not telling her. As Dana pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her back pocket and lit it, though, with an expectant look on her face, and a muscle bulging in her sinewy arm, he decided that it was probably better to play it safe. Survival instincts and all. "My Abuela's gonna die," he said, crossing her arms.

Dana took a drag from the cigarette. "Hmm," she said. It turned out that the Rottweiler breeder was a good listener. Not something that Leo would have expected, but he took the small pleasures in life where he could find them.

"It's all Uncle José and Aunt Rosa's fault," he added. Leo didn't care that he sounded like a bitter two year-old. He sounded like that most of the time anyway. It didn't really matter if he was eight or ten; the only difference with ten years old was that there wasn't his mom to tell him that his attitude wasn't the best way to approach the situation.

There was, however, a crass Rottweiler breeder to tell him to quit whining. "Oh?" she said, raising her eyebrows. "And how d'ya figure that one?"

"My Aunt Rosa's mean." Leo's eyes burned. Embarrassed, he wiped at his eyes furiously. "She says that I'm a witch boy, and I killed my mama. She says mean things about me. Nobody wanted to take me in after she told everybody in my family about me." He sniffled. "She and Uncle José said that my Abuela is too old to take care of me. She put me in the foster system. It's all their fault that Abuela's gonna die," he finished lamely. Said out loud, it made even less sense than it did in his head, but Leo needed somebody to blame it on.

By this time, they had reached the front porch of Dana's leaning shack. Dana stared at him, her mouth pinched in an unreadable expression. "Siddown," she said finally. "I wants to talk to you." Her arm closed on Leo's forearm, and they both sat on the creaky front porch of Dana's sagging house.

"Why?" Leo said stupidly.

Dana looked him over for a while longer, and then began to speak. "Did I ever tell you 'bout the soap stores?" At Leo's blank look, she elaborated. "Well, there's these fancy mall places. And in them mall places, there's all these fancy soap stores. They gots lotions, hand sanimitizers, and lots of more stuffs. And the best part? Well, they _scent _them hand sanimitizers. They make 'em smell like a little drop o' heaven.

"But see, they's gots lots of little drops o' heaven. They make a selection. So there's a lotta different scents of all different kinds of things. They's got flower scents, ocean scents, forest scents. Any kinda smell you can think of, you can bet your buttons that they've got 'em.

"Those smells are good alone. They smell nice and fresh. But when you get a boatload of all o' those scents, it starts to make your head get all fuzzy and dizzy. So, in them soap stores, they get a little bowl. They make it fancy, with pretty decorations and all, and then, in the bowl, they put somethin'. Can you guess what they put?" Leo shook his head. Dana grinned, taking another drag from her cigarette, and, in a conspicuous whisper, said, "_Coffee beans._"

"Coffee beans?" Leo echoed, balking.

"Coffee beans," Dana confirmed. "They done call it a 'pallet cleanser'. They say that it wipes away all the other scents, and makes your head stop spinnin' and your brain shake off all the fuzz." She let a small, satisfied smirk edge its way onto her face. She took a deep breath, puffing out a stream of gray smoke. "Toothpick, it ain't your aunt or uncle's fault that your gramma done kick the bucket. It just be life. Some peoples got it long, some peoples got it short. Your gramma had it pretty long, I think, if she was too old to take care of ya. It's just her time." Dana leaned back. "Toothpick… the rest o' your family ain't your aunt."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leo said, scowling and crossing his arms.

"It mean that your aunt may be a right stick in the mud and a mean old bi-"Dana hastily coughed. "I mean, a right old mean- uh- _person, _but that don't mean the rest o' your family like that. Sure, they all listen to that stick in the mud, but I'm sure they alright on they own." Dana sent Leo a pitying glance. "Give your uncle a chance. It ain't his fault that your Abuela gone die. It be nobody's. It's just one of them things."

Leo glared fiercely at her. "It is _to _my uncle's fault."

"Hmm" was Dana's only response. She got up to leave, taking another drag of her cigarette. She sent Leo a small smile. "It be your family's loss, listening to your aunt, anyway. You be pretty alright, Toothpick." She ruffled Leo's hair, walking in.

For months, that _'You be pretty alright, Toothpick_' was what Leo clung to. He held onto it through running away again- lasting two whole weeks this time- and getting caught yet again. He held onto it as he got a new foster family. That family made him eat _muesli. _Leo didn't even know such a thing existed before he joined their family.

Now, as Leo stood on the deck of the _Argo II, _he stared at Annabeth. She was laughing at something that Percy had said, her blonde curls glinting. He figured that he needed to figure out how to get some of those coffee beans. They wouldn't be to eat, obviously; Leo was way to ADHD to drink coffee. They would be a pallet cleanser. He needed to look at Annabeth without Percy overload clouding his vision.

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, I have officially failed at one-shots. I think explanations are probably in order for all of you that are like 'THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE END! WHERE ARE YOU EVEN GOING WITH THIS?!' I understand completely. The same thoughts came to me. Explanations will now be told. **

**Basically, I sat down to write part two and wrap this thing up. I then realized that Leo had a lot of hate vibes towards Annabeth, too, so I decided to put in a little bit explaining Leo's hate towards Annabeth. I was thinking about how to do that, and then I had an idea- a little cartoon light bulb appeared above my head and everything. I decided to go with a 'pallet cleanser' idea. The only problem? The chapter ended up being _WAY WAY WAY _too long. At the end, I decided that because I liked the idea for this, I would just post it as another contributing part. I would make it a three-part one-shot (can you even call it a one-shot anymore? I don't think so... I may be using that word to liberally... :/). Hence the unintentional filler part. **

**Originally, I was going to make these one-shots about 500 words. My first one ended up being about 800, and so I was like 'Eh, I'll just go with it.' As these one-shots go on, they just get longer and longer. (I say now: sorry.) So, after I hit the 2000 words mark, I just threw up my hands. I actually kind of liked the idea for this chapter, so I posted it anyway, when I really should have rewritten it. This will just add on to the story. Any longer, and I swear I might even just make a short multi-chapter fic. **

**Anyway... SUPER LONG author's note later (jeez, I seem to do a lot of those lately) and many many apologies to those who were expecting a conclusion...**

**Thanks to the reviewer who posted a review for the previous chapter! Many thanks! Please review again! **


	29. Animosity, Part Three: Poking the Bear

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. **

**Rating: T**

**Prompt idea: Athenachild101 (THANK YOU)**

**Synopsis: Leo is slowly starting to find out that he can't hide from the people that he least wants to see. He's just going to have to choose which person to confront, though, and which 'bear to poke'...**

* * *

Animosity

Part Three: Poking the Bear

**Leo was beginning to run out of places to hide. **

He had hidden in some pretty embarrassing places in the last twelve hours. Leo had never thought that he would stoop as low as to hide under Jason's bed, or in Piper's closet. He certainly never thought that he'd stoop so low as to hide behind Coach Hedge's massive entertainment set. The grouchy old satyr had ended up coming into the room while Leo was hiding, and he had proceeded to turn on a mixed martial arts fight. Loudly. Leo was still regaining hearing in his left ear.

It was pathetic that, as horrible as all of those things were, none of them were worse than the alternative. When Leo thought of what might have happened if he hadn't hidden… Well, the picture wasn't pretty. He would just leave it at that. Unfortunately, leaving the situation alone wasn't helping. The less he poked the bear, the _angrier _it seemed to become.

In Leo's defense, he had a good reason for wanting to keep the situation at arm's length. The reason wasn't what someone might have thought, either. It was far more cunning than that.

"_Leo Valdez!"_

His reason was simple. Annabeth Chase was positively driving him insane.

It wasn't as immature as it sounded- or, if you looked at it from a different perspective, perhaps it was. Leo Valdez hated Percy Jackson, and, in turn, he hated Annabeth Chase. The reasons for this went on and on and on (Leo was fairly certain that you could write an entire book about his intense hatred for the two of them) but, skimming over that fact and returning back to the present, Leo was sick and tired from running from Annabeth Chase. He was at odds with one of his crewmates, and it wasn't helping.

Since the day that Annabeth and Percy had returned from Tartarus, exactly twelve hours ago, Leo had been attempting to keep his distance. His mother had once told him that if he didn't have anything nice to say, than he shouldn't say anything at all. Leo had taken the advice into account every time it truly counted, but he was getting dangerously close to breaking his rule. Being in relatively close quarters with two people that he hated was starting to get on his nerves.

Annabeth had been trying to seek Leo out since she had returned back on board. After getting some much needed TLC with Percy, and a nice, long nap, she had instantly set into overdrive. Leo had known the intense blonde for months now, and he was beginning to realise her antidote for stress: work. Every time Annabeth Chase got worried, she threw herself into a project that she could act on. It worked when Percy was off fraternising with wolves and Romans, and he figured that it was probably working right now, except for one minor roadblock: Leo.

The smart blonde had instantly thrown herself into having a game of Hi-Low with every single person on the board. She wanted to know every antagonising detail about when she was down in hell, from an alleged encounter with Evil Cupid, the Seven Dwarves of Insane Asylums, and even the Incredibly Frightening Creepy Lady They Were Calling Hecate For Some Reason Leo Still Didn't Understand.

Annabeth had tried to talk to Leo, and he had promptly ignored her. For the first six hours, this had worked fine. He had run like a coward, and Annabeth had moved on to other people to bother. Then, of course, she had run out of other people to talk to. Annabeth had moved on to Leo, and was still attempting to talk to him. Leo was trying to avoid her as best as she could.

"_Leo_!"

He was jarred out of his reverie and back into reality suddenly, snapping out of it in a mere second. Leo was soon brought back down to earth cruelly by a frustrated Annabeth marching across the top deck of the _Argo II, _straight towards him. Leo could have just been imagining it, but he was fairly sure that he saw flames come out of Annabeth's nostrils.

There was only time for a split-second decision. Leo chose the easiest path: flee. He fled, running as fast as his stick legs would carry him. "Leo!" Annabeth called behind him, her voice clearly frustrated. "Can I please just talk to you for one second?!"

"No!" Leo shouted back behind him, the first word that he had really exchanged with her since they boarded the _Argo II_. It was pitiful, yes; but the whole situation was pitiful at that point. It was just expected.

He finally ran out of breath at the doorway to the pegasi stables, breathing heavily. Leo listened closely for footsteps, and, finding none, grinned tiredly and collapsed on a hay bale that he had originally put out for the pegasi. Leaning against the wall, he gazed down at the world beneath the glass doors.

From the height that he was at, everything seemed to be crystallised. It was all tiny, and perfect, little squares and circles of land. Houses smaller than Leo's fingernail whizzed by, no more than little white dots. Leo breathed heavily, thinking how out of shape he was. Working on machines, while exhausting, was not the same sort of exhausting as running from an angry daughter of Athena. It was exercise of the mind, not the body.

Leo remembered building the pegasi stables. When he had laid out the plans for the _Argo II, _he had known how ridiculous they were. He remembered seeing the look on Annabeth's face. When he had first drawn them up, he had thought about Annabeth's reaction a million times. 'Are you insane?' he had pictured her saying. 'Have you completely lost your mind?' Leo smiled briefly; bitterly. Her reaction hadn't been like that at all.

Instead, she had looked up at the three of them- Leo, Piper, and Jason- and just stared at them. Annabeth was completely aware that they were all waiting for her reaction. She seemed to be fumbling for the right words to say, for once in her life. When Leo had looked her in the eyes, he had been surprised by what he saw. Her gray eyes had stared back at him levelly, sadder than he had seen in weeks. Heavier than he had seen in weeks.

She had leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms. "There's a lot of work to do for this ship, Leo," she had said matter-of-factly. "It's a very high-end ship. Lots of amenities." Her index finger traced the outline. "It'll likely take months."

Leo's face reddened. "I know. It's a lot of stuff that we didn't need. I just thought since we would be staying there for a while… well… Sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Annabeth said. "Be ready." She had smiled a little bit. It hadn't been a big smile, or anything crazy, but it had been the first real smile that Leo had seen on her face from the moment that he met her. "There's things that need to be done. If we're going to be building this ship, you had better be ready to haul ass."

Leo smiled briefly, coming back from the memory. Piper, Jason, and he had all stared at Annabeth in shock. She just seemed to enjoy their bewildered silence, smirking smugly. It had taken a split-second for him to decide that he _would _haul ass. He _would _get this ship done. It would just take a lot of work.

Of course, not everything had worked out perfectly. There were a few minor delays and things, the pegasi stables being the worst of them. The stables had been a labor of love for Leo, both constructing and drawing them up. He had been thrilled to have a few pegasi underneath his feet, but, as it turned out, they didn't like to be confined. Leo understood that. He didn't like it, but he understood it, and he didn't push, disappointed as he was. It had been a dark day for Leo Valdez, but without the dark days, there wouldn't be any light days.

Someone rapped at the doorway of the stables, startling Leo and making him jump a bit. Leo didn't even look up: he knew exactly who it was. Sighing and wiping his sweaty palms on his shirt, Leo said, "Annabeth, I don't want to talk to you. I'm sorry. I just… I can't right now, okay?"

"It's not Annabeth."

There was a period of time in every middle school student's life when they began to swear. It came tentatively at first, with a few cuss words sprinkled here and there, and then all at once, like a jammed door that you suddenly managed to wedge free. There was a period of time in which the middle school student swore a little _too _much before returning to the Land of Normal Swearing. Leo had undergone this period in early seventh grade, when he swore like a sailor.

At the time, he had been staying with a conservative, extremely religious Catholic family. This, combined with Leo's fondness for rebellion, was not a good mix. He wasn't suicidal- he made sure to keep the swearing at school and away from home- but the inevitable soon happened. He dropped an f-bomb right in front of Mary Cecilia Hart, his foster mother.

She had dropped the glass pitcher of iced tea that she was filling up.

It had shattered all over the floor, and she had been so furious that Mary had done the only thing that came to mind. She slapped Leo across the face. It had stung, and though Mary had been horrified at what had been done, and had apologised, there was no point. Leo was gone by the next morning. Going, going, gone.

After that day, Leo had sworn never to cuss that badly. And, up until that moment, he kept that promise. He never swore that terribly until right then, when he looked up to the person in the doorway. Instead of meeting the gray eyes that he was expecting, he met a pair of extremely angry green ones.

Leo swore internally, worse than he ever had in his entire life. He swallowed his curses, trying desperately not to let them fly out, but he muttered more than a few under his breath. Percy Jackson's chiseled face remained impassive, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"Percy," Leo finally made out. The first word that didn't start in f and rhyme with duck. It was the small things in life.

"Valdez," Percy said. The muscle in his jaw continued to twitch, and he crossed his arms, walking into the stables. He stood directly in front of Leo, looking down at him. His face was impassive, though his eyes were boring. _Not happy, then, _Leo thought, making a mental note.

Leo sighed. "What do you want?" he said crossly. Leo was sick and tired of hiding from stupid Percy Jackson and his stupid girlfriend. He didn't want to talk to either of them. Couldn't they just catch the hint?

"I want to know why you're running away from Annabeth like she's a recently escaped prison ward on a killing spree," Percy said, not missing a beat.

"Awfully specific," Leo commented briefly. "I mean, I can't run away from Annabeth like a long-since escaped prison ward on a stealing spree? What's up with the rules and regulations?"

Percy glared at Leo. He leaned back against the wall, his legs crossed. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "I'm a pretty stupid person," he said. "I'm going to be honest. I'm especially stupid next to all of you guys, with your big words and fancy thingamajigs. I mean, I hang out with Annabeth a lot, okay? I think I realise that I'm stupid. But… that being said… I'm not dumb, if you know what I mean. Annabeth and I both share one kind of smarts: street smarts. We can both read people pretty well, and while it sometimes takes me a while to realise exactly what I'm reading in a person, I still get it eventually. And, Valdez, you're not exactly making my job difficult." He stared at Leo, his gaze even. "You've been avoiding Annabeth and I like the plague since we got back on this ship. And I want to know why."

"I haven't been avoiding you like the plague," Leo protested weakly. "Or, you know, like recently escaped prison wards on killing sprees. Or long-since escaped prison wards on stealing sprees."

"Don't pull that BS on me, Valdez," Percy said. "I know that you've got some sort of problem with me. When I fell into hell, you were fine with Annabeth and I. When I come out of hell, you treat me like I'm one of the monsters from Tartarus."

Leo crossed his arms. "I have no problem with you whatsoever."

"Prove it."

"What did you just say?" Leo said, furrowing his eyebrows. "‛Prove it'? I'm pretty sure that if I take that crap to anyone else on this boat, they're going to tell us to just get them out and measure them already."

Percy snorted. "Yeah, uh, that's not what I meant, but I wouldn't suggest that, anyway. I have serious doubts in your plan." He glared at Leo. "On another, more relevant note, I'd like to take a moment to say that what I meant by 'prove it' was not to go running off to Annabeth with that crap. I meant that if you want to prove that you don't have anything against Annabeth or me, then you can go ahead and talk to Annabeth. Have that conversation. If you do, then I'll let this whole thing go. If you don't… Well, you better start talking. I'm not liking the clamming up act."

Leo stilled. This was it: the crossroads. He could stuff down his anger even further, or he could bring it bubbling up to the surface. They stared at him like one of those roadway signs, the ones with the arrows. On one way, it said, MUTUAL HATE, and on the other, it said, ONE-SIDED HATE. Then, below, on a third one, it said, NO HATE. The only problem was, there wasn't an arrow to go along with the third sign. Leo could choose to talk to Percy now, or shut it and talk to Annabeth now.

It was a split-second decision regarding which bear to poke, and Leo wasn't liking his odds either way.

Finally, Leo cracked. The anger and hate that he had been holding back all this time finally came out. "Fine!" Leo exploded, throwing up his hands and launching to his feet. "Do you wanna know why I'm angry at you, Percy Jackson? Well, there's actually a lot of reasons. You're a pretty hateable person. And, right now, I don't even care that the word is not in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. I don't care." His nostrils flared. "But, really, I'm angry at you for one reason. And it's a good one, too." Leo's eyes blazed, and his voice dropped deceptively low. "Ever heard of a place called Ogygia, Percy Jackson?"

Percy froze. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me," Leo said triumphantly. "Ogygia. O-G-Y-G-I-A."

"I know how to spell it," Percy said, glaring fiercely at Leo. "Where did you hear that name?" he said, running a hand through his windblown, jet-black hair.

"From Calypso." Leo crossed his arms. "You're not the only one who met her. I saw her too. And I heard about you." He took a step forward. "You deserted her on that island. You left her on the side of the road, like yesterday's trash."

"You… met… Calypso…" Percy said dumbly.

"Yeah, I did. And I just want to tell you right now: I think you're a jerk. People at camp are always saying how amazing you are, and how awesome, but honestly? I had a little chat with your friend Grover, and I'm thinking you're a wannabe pain in the ass. Seeing you right now, and hearing what you did to Calypso just confirms it."

Percy seemed to snap out of his reverie. He took a step forward, his eyes flashing dangerously. "I would pick and choose your words carefully, Valdez, before you hear the whole story. You can go ahead and take Calypso's side, following her like a lovesick puppy all you want, but it's not going to change the fact that I had two reasons for leaving her. And only one reason to stay."

"Oh, yeah? And what, exactly, were those reasons?" Leo challenged.

"The first reason was this minor complication," Percy said. He tapped the side of his mouth. "Oh, gods, what was it? Things always escape me like this. There was this thing that I had to do when I was fifteen… Oh, yeah, I remember!" He threw up his hands. "There was this Titan, Kronos, and my friend's old crush turned sadistic and evil that I kind of had to deal with. Plus a prophesy that I thought decided my fate. Sorry to inconvenience _Calypso._"

Leo stared at him. "Sorry about that," he said. "But, see, it turns out, I have a minor quest too. It's called saving the world from _Gaea. _I left her, too! I had to! But at least I wasn't a giant DB about it!"

"Who says that I was a DB about it? Calypso?" He scoffed. "Please. When we won the Second Titan War, I begged the gods to get her off that godsforsaken island and into the real world, where she belongs." Percy frowned. "They failed." There was obviously something else bothering him about the statement- as if it were a renewed cut, like a scab picked over twice.

"You should have made sure that they did get her off the island!" Leo shouted. "You should have marched up to them. You should have _spent every waking second _making sure that they got her off that island_._" His voice broke.

"You don't march up to gods and demand things, Valdez," Percy said, his green eyes flashing. "Now, I don't know how much experience you have, but I've met with almost all the Olympians in close conversations, and, let me tell you, there is no demanding. There is just waiting."

"Waiting." It was a blatant statement, but so laden with accusation that Percy flinched. "You know," Leo said, "I think there's a fine line between waiting and double-checking to make sure that a girl who had fallen for you finished her eternal punishment. My bad." Leo waved his hands. "I have a quest too, Percy. I was just better about handling it. I was sorry."

"No, you were in love with her," Percy said. "There's a fine line between the two, Valdez, and you're on the wrong side of it. Quit with the melodramatics. You're mad because you didn't want to leave someone that you were in love with."

There was nothing for Leo to say after that. Just silence. A long, thick, silence.

"Ah," Percy said quietly. "I've hit the jackpot, then." He took a step forward. "See, the difference between our experiences wasn't all that big. We both had quests. We both had decisions to make. And though we chose the same, we had different feelings about it." Percy took a deep breath. "You're in love with Calypso. I wasn't."

"You were in love with her, too," Leo said. "Don't try and pretend that you weren't."

"I'm not pretending. Remember when I said that I had two reasons for leaving? The first was Kronos." Percy sagged. "The second reason was Annabeth. I was in love with her, not Calypso, and though it was a while before I actually confronted my feelings about Annabeth, it didn't change the fact that I was in love with one of my best friends. I liked Calypso. Yes; I thought she was beautiful. Yes; I thought that she was amazing. But was I in love with her?" Percy shook his head. "No."

"You are pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. You're just trying to cover up the fact that you screwed up with Calypso," Leo said, though the words came out lamely.

"No, I'm not." Percy sighed. "Right before I landed on Ogygia, I… I was about to die. Annabeth kissed me, thinking that I'd never see her again." He looked down, at the ground whizzing below them, impossibly fast, and impossibly surreal. "To this day, I don't know what she was thinking at that moment, and I don't want to know. I like to think that she's stronger than me, and a heck of a lot braver." He didn't meet Leo's eyes. "I don't know why Annabeth likes me. I'm an idiot, and I make way too many mistakes to ever deserve her." Percy finally rose his gaze to meet Leo's. "All I know is that I'm lucky. Really, really lucky. I felt sorry for Calypso. I tried to help her. I'm sorry that I didn't question the gods. I probably should have, somewhere along the line." He laughed bitterly. "Truth is, I've questioned the gods before. It's probably why I landed in hell. It's all their idea of a practical joke. But… if I had to go back… I wouldn't change my actions. I would leave Ogygia. I love somebody else. I love Annabeth. Just like you love Calypso."

Leo gazed at Percy for a long time. There were a million things that he could have said in that one second. See, the thing is, time moved in different speeds for everyone. For some people, they moved incredibly fast. For others, they moved agonisingly slow. For Leo, in that moment, it seemed to be a little bit of both, somehow. Time was racing against him, and yet, he couldn't wait for the second to be over.

"I…" Leo's admission came out throaty, and he cleared his throats. "I'm sorry." He looked down at his hands. The black machine grease never seemed to truly wash out of them, much as he tried. "I… Well… I understand. And I didn't realise that before." Leo looked back at Percy. "I don't really agree with all that you did- I still think that you effed up pretty badly- but… well, I guess…" He trailed off. Taking a deep breath, he said, "I guess that I had better have that talk with Annabeth."

For a moment, Percy's face was blank. Then, slowly, a goofy, lopsided smile spread across Percy's face. "Yeah," Percy said quietly. "I guess that you better."

As Leo walked out of the stables, up the stairs, he remarked on how he probably poked the right bear. Percy put up a pretty scary front, especially when he was fighting monsters, but inside, Leo was pretty sure that Percy was still a little kid. Leo knew exactly why Annabeth loved Percy. From the rumors that Leo had embarrassingly listened into at Camp Half-Blood, he knew that Annabeth's childhood had been… well, less than pleasant. Annabeth had run away at home from seven. She probably grew up way before her time, hence the super-smart, don't-cross-me-if-you-want-to-live attitude. And with Percy, who _was _a kid, despite the intimidating muscles, scary glare, and hurricane powers, Annabeth probably felt pretty young again. That was probably how it started, anyway.

By the time that he found Annabeth, leaning on the railing on the top deck of the _Argo II, _looking moodily out, Leo had reached an epiphany. He gently tapped her on her shoulder, clearing his throat. Annabeth pulled back, a quizzical expression on her face. When she saw who it was, she instantly became guarded. "Leo," she said slowly.

"Hey, Annabeth," Leo said. He thought back to what Dana had once said, about a pallet cleanser. Leo envisioned a bowl of coffee beans in front of him, and, metaphorically, took the coffee beans. He took a deep breath. "Look. I'm not mad at you. And I don't hate you, either."

"Well… uh… that's good, I guess," Annabeth said cautiously. "Leo, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute. Where is all of this coming from?"

"Your boyfriend. He kind of talked some sense into me. And gave me a bowl of coffee beans." Leo smiled at his own private joke.

"What?" Annabeth said, clearly confused. "Did you just say that Percy gave you a bowl of coffee beans? Why on earth would he do that? And, more importantly, why didn't he give me a cup of coffee first?" She stifled a yawn. For the first time since she had gotten back onto the _Argo II, _Leo had a chance to really look at her. He saw the deep purple smudges underneath her eyes, her haggard appearance, and her state.

"No," he said quietly. "We just talked."

"About what?" Annabeth asked, bewildered. "Leo, I'm more than a bit intrigued. I couldn't get you to look at me twenty minutes ago, and now you're all happy-go-lucky. What did he even say?"

"Nothing much," Leo said. "I just poked the right bear." He smiled at her. "You should probably get some sleep. I know that you just took a nap, but you should probably get some more shut-eye." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry, by the way."

Annabeth blinked. "Well. Thank you, anyway."

And, just like that, all the hate that Leo had been feeling evaporated. See, the thing was, people thought that you could either stuff your anger down, or throw it at somebody. In the course of a day, Leo had done three things with his anger. He had pressed it down, letting it settle on his soul, he had thrown it into Percy Jackson's face, and then he had greeted reality and just let his hate fly away. It was somewhere over Greece by now, just settling on the air. He had poked the right bear. And for now, that was alright.

Leo still thought that Percy had messed up with Calypso. He still thought that Calypso deserved better. But in that moment, floating over Greece in a flying Greek trireme, he figured that some things were worth forgetting, just for a moment. Not forgiving- that would still take some work- but forgetting.

Because, though Leo might not agree with Percy Jackson, at least he understood him.

In that moment, in the midst of forgetting, that was enough.

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**A/N: Okay. This is WAY too long. I really, really need to start making these chapters shorter :/. I really should have split this chapter, but I couldn't find a good place to split it, so I just had to make do. Oh, well...**

**Anyway, this concludes this 3-part entry. I hope that you all enjoyed it!**

**IMPORTANT NOTICE****: I want to thank all of you that are giving me prompts. I'm not always a very creative person, and you've given me an opportunity to write much better chapters than I would have written just straining my brain. However, stupid creativity has come back. So, from now on, I'll be doing prompts; I'm just going to be writing prompts every other chapter. The first chapter will be one of my ideas, and then the consecutive chapter will be after that. If anyone has any questions/complaints, please PM me or review! I usually check FanFiction at least every 1-3 days for PMers. **

**Thank you to reviewers! Please review again!**


	30. Anchor

**Chapter 30: Anchor**

**Rating: T**

**Prompt: J.J.**

**Synopsis: It's Prohibition, in a hazy nightclub filled with nefarious acts, and a certain two are about to meet for the first time. Alternate-Universe.**

**Time period: Alternate-Universe. 1920s.**

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**The nightclub was hazy with a shroud of cigarette smoke.**

I looked down at all the gentlemen sitting below me. They all sipped at their 'fine' liquors, smoking cigars and cigarettes. A coy smile breached my lips when I thought of what their wives or mistresses would no doubt say if they saw them there. The finely tailored suits in the audience suggested a wealthy class. That led to fine, well-bred wives, who wore stiff-collared blouses, pencil skirts, and respectable stockings. This nightclub was many things, but respectable was not one of them.

When I first came to New York City, I wasn't planning on working in a nightclub. It was 1920, and Prohibition had just been announced. I was a good girl, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but a series of failed interviews and chuckles at a '_woman for a scholar' _had toughened me up. When I finally got an offer from a less-than-respectable friend for a flapper girl job, I snatched it up. I was about to be kicked out of my apartment by that point, and was desperate.

When I arrived at the theatre that first day, there was a crushing sense of reality. Drunk girls wobbled around on precarious heels, blowing cigarette smoke in my face. I hung my head, put on a dark line of kohl, and adorned the skanky flapper dress that I had to wear. After a few months, it became evident that I had no talent for dancing. I messed up numbers- sometimes on account of how inebriated I was- and even twisted one of the other girl's ankles. I was about to get fired when they heard me singing.

Now, I had my own act. I stood up there on that stage, singing into a microphone. I accepted the fact that I had a low-cut, skanky sparkly silver dress, heels four inches too high, a bob of unorthodox blonde curls, and far too much makeup. I accepted the fact that I was drunk- a fact that was not only pitiful, but illegal, as well. I accepted this, I earned my paycheck, and, at the end of the day, I went home, flattened my hair, unhooked my earrings, wiped the makeup off of my face, and cried for a little bit. New York City didn't give dreams. It took them.

As I sung in the microphone, my words slightly slurred, my eyes darted around the audience. Most of them were the usual customers: portly men, with a bald spot in the back of their head, gold-rimmed spectacles, and a stomach too big for the waistband of their pants. There was, however, one odd group in the back.

My eyes zeroed in on them. It was a group of four men. None of them were portly, and none of them were old. The first of them was a tall, gangly boy with ice-blue eyes, blonde hair, and a miniature scar, right above his lip. The second was an impish boy with black, curly hair, and a Hispanic complexion. The third was a Chinese boy with a buzz-cut, and big brown eyes. And the fourth… well, my heart skipped a beat at the fourth.

He stood near the corner, nursing a faux crystal glass of what the nightclub claimed was fine Scotch (in reality, it was cheap whiskey). He leaned against the wall, in a suit that could probably buy my entire apartment and its furnishings with money left to buy me a five-star meal. He had windswept black hair, tanned, olive skin, and bright green eyes. His gaze met mine, and something like an electric shock passed through me. He held up a hand, and I stumbled a bit over the words to the song. "_And it's sweet- uh, good- honey," _I continued, noticing a dirty look from my manager.

I sung, but, even as I did so, my gaze remained riveted on the one boy. Not everyone was meant to wear a suit, but he _did _look rather fetching- much better than the fifty-somethings looking to have a few drinks and cheat on their wives. You only made that mistake once.

The show finished, quicker than I would have thought possible. When I finally stumbled offstage, in my sky-high heels, my hair swaying with each step, I was in dire need of a drink and a wakeup call. When I collapsed down in my chair, gazing in the mirror, I was shocked by the face that I saw.

Since becoming a flapper girl, I had long since given up looking in the mirror- or, at least, paying attention to what I saw. Ninety percent of the time, it was a mosaic for fifty-something men to enjoy, not a mosaic for any self-respecting human being. What I saw tonight was even worse. There were bluish smudges underneath my eyes, covered up by a thin, caking layer of makeup. My eyes were done in messy blue streaks to match my sleazy dress, and my kohl was nearly dripping. Loose tendrils were starting to fall free of my hairdo.

"Annabeth! Annabeth!" I turned around suddenly, only to be ambushed by one of the other singers, a girl named Lulabelle. She walked over to me, a cigarette in her hand, her voice gravelly. "What on earth did ya do out there? What are ya tryin' to do, get us all killed? Manager's in a state already. I mean, for Chrissakes." She took a drag from her cig.

I winced. Lulabelle was still standing in front of me, her messy auburn hair in static tendrils. "I… I have to go." It was the only thing that I could think to say, but at that moment, I had just been visibly shaken by my reflection.

I pushed past the other showgirls backstage, noticing the dingy mirrors and cracked makeup cases. Tears sprang to my eyes. This was not what I thought I would be doing in New York. I had come from Richmond, Virginia, with high hopes, and they had been crushed, like a bug. I didn't know what I was even thinking, doing this. I was just a hopeless cause.

I pushed the doors open, and they parted like the Red Sea for Moses, from the Bible my mama used to read to me at night. My heels clopped down the stairs, and I hugged myself. I was tipsy, in a sparkly dress, and near tears, but right then, I didn't really care. I was a hot mess either way. People might as well know about it.

I probably would have made a clean escape, too, if not for him.

A body solidified in front of me. Without having time to register, I slammed into it. Someone's drink poured down the front of my dress. "Whoa! Jesus. In a hurry to go somewhere, I take it?" A firm pair of arms grasped my shoulders, putting me back at arm's length.

When I saw who it was, my heart nearly stopped. _Thump. Thump. Thump. …Thump. Oh, god no. Please. Don't do this to me, God. I know that I've been a real pain in the moral ass lately, but please, pretty please, don't let this be _my _life happening right now. _Yet, as many times as I blinked and wished for a different life, this was reality.

It was the boy from earlier. His eyes were even more surreal from up close, and it sent shivers down my back. He smiled down at me, his teeth impossibly white. His grip was firm, and solid, and I didn't move a muscle. It had been a while since something- or someone- had been able to anchor me down. For two years, now, I had been floating in a haze of alcohol and songs. Yet, in the span of a moment, this boy seemed to take it all away, with a mere snap of his fingers. _Witch boy, _I thought.

"Um. Yeah. I th'ppose so," I said, my words heavily slurred. A look of understanding seemed to pass over the boy's face, and he sighed. Surprisingly enough, I only got a whiff of a bit of his drink on his breath. _Not entirely drunk, then. _

"Jason! Leo! Frank!" The three boys from earlier looked at us. The impish, Hispanic boy elbowed the blonde one, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I've got to go get some air." The boy gestured to me, and both the blonde and the Chinese boy nodded understandingly. The curly-haired one, however, gave a thumbs-up and a dirty grin.

A sense of panic rolled over me. What was this boy going to do? What was going to happen? "I d-do _notah _need to go nowhere," I said, my words vague. "'S _fine. _Donneed to take me nowhere, witchy boy."

The boy stared at me, a quizzical expression on his face. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Whatever you say, blondie, but, unfortunately, I've got a conscience. You walk out those doors, and the police are gonna smack down on you. You'll be in jail in the next twenty minutes." He shook his head. "You're coming with me."

He took my wrist, and led me through a labyrinth of different people, all swirling around me. My mind was whirling a million miles per hour, and I was fairly sure that it wasn't just the whiskey. It was this boy's hand on my wrist, sending electric jolts up my arm. Who was this boy? And why did he care whether or not I was in jail? It wouldn't be the first time, and the manager would just bail me out and take it out of my paycheck. Problem solved.

No one had cared in a long time. No one had cared since- well, since my dad. He had died three years earlier, when I was seventeen. My mom had died when I was nine. The time for pity and caring had been over.

Or so I had thought.

The boy led me out through a set of doors, and helped me up a large, metal staircase. I tripped over more than a few of them, almost collapsing and breaking my crown like Jack and Jill. Finally, when we reached the top, we were in a small room, with yet another set of doors. The boy pushed them open, still leading me through them.

A blast of cool night air hit me. We were on the roof of the nightclub, I realized. The boy had actually led me to get some fresh air. That was my first realization. The second realization was that the roof of the nightclub was an absolute mess.

Old, soggy newspapers were scattered everywhere. Leaves were piled up in corners, and a large spider scuttled along the ground. It was disgusting, and I didn't even care. I just plopped myself down, taking my pounding head in my hands.

The boy laughed shortly, sitting beside me. "Well, that's that, then," he said, a lopsided smile on his face. "You looked pretty rough in there. Both on stage and on the floor." He smiled knowingly.

"Well, you're the tharmer, arentcha?" I said, my words blurred together. "Be nice to tell a girl somethin' _good. _Be nice to hear something _good_. All I hear is bad, bad, bad." I placed my hands over my ears, as if to demonstrate.

The boy raised his eyebrows. "I just said that you looked rough. I never said that you performed badly." He gave me an once-over of begrudging respect. "Even drunk off your ass on this cheap whiskey they're trying to pass for Scotch, you've got a nice voice."

"Well _thanks. _Backhander complimenter if I ever heard one," I said, my words becoming confused. "And 's Scotch! The best in Manhattan." I nodded my head knowingly, my curls bobbing up and down with each movement of my head.

He threw his head back and laughed. "Even drunk and underpaid, you're still trying to market for your club. That's devotion, right there." He shook his head, reaching into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He procured one, as well as a match.

"Can I 'ave a bit?"

He looked at me in surprise. "You smoke?" I nodded, holding out my hand with a roll of my eyes. The boy seemed to think it over, but, in the end, he struck up a cigarette and handed it to me. I closed my eyes, taking a long drag. The boy smiled at me, a traffic-stopping smile that made my heart skip a few beats. "You know, my mom was your age when she had me."

Well, that was an unexpected piece of information. "Wha?" I said, confused. "Your mama?" I furrowed my eyebrows, trying to work through this new sentence.

"Yep," the boy said, taking a drag from his own cigarette. "She was a hustler, back in the day. She got paid to do it with my daddy- a rich captain, rollin' in money." He smiled ruefully. "Never met him, and I can't really say I'm sorry." His gaze turned to me, those green soul-searching eyes that seemed to ground me right to this very spot. "But I do know what you're going through. My mom was a hustler for a while when I was a kid. She had the same look on her face when she came home." He gestured to my face.

"Wha look?" I slurred.

The boy looked sad. "That one. You both have the same sort of look in your eyes. It screams for help." He took a drag from his cigarette. "Of dreams, long gone down, down, down." He looked up at the sky.

I stared at him, dumbfounded. "Who _are _ya?" I demanded. Who was this boy? Who was this boy, to take me up to the roof, give me a cigarette, and talk to me about dreams long gone down, down, down?

The boy smiled. "My name is Percy Jackson. Not British; Greek. Common misconception."

"Why do you _care _'bout look in my eyes?" I said, staring at him. "Nobody else cares. Mama died in fever. Daddy gone too. All I gots is my stepmother, down in Virginia. Why do _you _care?"

My words hung in the silence between the two of us. Then, slowly, the boy leaned in, and kissed me. It was a slow kiss, tasting of the liquor on his tongue, and the cigarette still in both of our hands. Then, it was over, infuriatingly brief.

Percy looked down at me ruefully. "Good night," he said, his words thick.

I stared at him. "_G'night? _Thas' all you have for me?" I was outraged. "You kiss, and leave? 'S it a _sick game _to ya?" I stood up, stumbling to my feet. "It in't funny, lemme tell ya! In't funny at all!"

"I didn't say it was funny," Percy said, his eyes soft. He reached into his waist pocket, and pulled out a piece of paper. On it, he scribbled something. He looked up at me, grinned, and placed the piece of paper firmly in my palm. "Call me sometime. When you're sober, that is." With one final smirk, he turned his back on me.

I unfolded the paper quickly. On it were a few digits- a phone number. "Wait!" I called, tripping over something in the cement. Percy turned around, that smug smile still plastered on his face.

"Yeah?"

"Name's Annabeth," I told him. "Jus thought you should know." I stared at him, pleading for this newfound anchor to stay put, right where he was, and not to wander off. It had been so long since somebody had cared.

"Goodnight, Annabeth," Percy said softly.

With that, he walked out, shutting the door to the stairs quietly behind him.

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**A/N: Hullo! I'm back! :) Also- I took the liberty of finishing this story while I was gone. There are a few more chapters after this, but after that, this one-shot collection is done. :(**

**Thank you to all reviewers who understood about the complications. I'll be updating as soon as I can, if I can manage 1-per-day for the conclusion to Words. Thanks to all readers who've stuck it through with me, from the very early chapters.**


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